Craigavon, County Armagh-based OBE Waste and Agri Engineering Ltd was named Farm Supplier/Machinery Company of the Year at the Farming Life and Danske Bank Awards 2016 last October. Irish Tractor & Agri caught up with company partner Darryl Hylands who traced the company’s roots from humble beginnings to market leader in its chosen field.
The annual Farming Life and Danske Bank Awards celebrate excellence in farming in Northern Ireland and OBE Waste and Agri Engineering Ltd were delighted to have won the award which recognises the hard work put in by their sixteen strong team.
OBE was a wholly owned family business until 2011 when it was incorporated to OBE Waste & Agri Engineering Ltd, manufacturing equipment for the agricultural, construction and waste industries throughout Europe and the world.
The Hylands family run company specialise in the design, development and manufacture of MASTERBURN waste incinerators, OBE Agri trailers and agricultural machinery, attachments for materials handling and Slurry-TEK vacuum tankers and slurry handling equipment.
The company’s roots are in agriculture with four generation of the Hylands family involved in farming over a period of 100 years. The company was formed by present partners, Darryl and Beverley Hylands, to supplement the income for their poultry farm.
They began manufacturing poultry incinerators when they needed to dispose of poultry carcasses on their own farm. Soon they began to make incinerators and machinery for other farmers and business grew rapidly.
Darryl’s qualification in Mechanical, Electrical and Civil Engineering as well as the experience he gained during 12 years working as an Engineer in Local Government came in handy when he set about the task of designing and manufacturing his own incinerator.
“Due to a change in legislation at that time we had to come up with an alternative for disposing of the dead poultry. I wasn’t happy with the products that were on the market so decided to make one myself. Other people from the locality heard about it and approached me to see if I would make ones for them and the company grew from there initially.”
OBE now employ the latest design and manufacturing technology to produce quality equipment to meet today’s market needs. Their company policy is to offer their customers cost effective solutions and to exceed their expectations in customer support from design to the finished product.
Their varied client base includes farmers, veterinary practices, pet cremation services, meat processors, medical facilities, aquaculture sites, oil exploration and mining camps, government organisations and agricultural machinery dealers.
They export to over 27 countries worldwide including Vietnam, Afghanistan, Ascension Island, Poland, Iceland, Saudi Arabia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and New Zealand.
OBE Waste and Agri Engineering Ltd offer bespoke solutions to ensure that their products are ‘Designed for You’ to fulfill your specific requirements.
Darryl and his “dedicated team’”can work with you to capture your individual requirements so that their products can help you meet your objectives, whether that’s increasing productivity, improving farm bio-security, reducing operating costs or improving safety.
It’s an approach that sets OBE apart from its competitors, he pointed out.
“We pride ourselves on the bespoke service we provide our customers. People are not afraid to come to us and say ‘I want it done this way’. 80% of our stuff is off standard in some shape or form.
“With my design background and experience, I can sit down with a client and go through what we’ve tried in the past, how it works and generally we meet somewhere in the middle and reach the required manufacture and end user needs.
“We may not be the cheapest product on the market because of that but I prefer to build a product the way that I would like it built and it has to be a good product at a fair price. And as for customer support, we’re always available, from eight in the morning to 10pm at night.”
One product in the OBE portfolio which is very much in demand at this point in time is their low centre gravity tanker.
This tanker features a unique design, exclusive to OBE, where the axle is placed through the tanker so that the centre of gravity is shifted lower than that of a stepped axle version. This makes the tanker much safer for spreading on slopes. OBE is the only company in the UK and Ireland which manufactures this unique low centre gravity tanker.
“That’s proving to be a very popular product with our customers and there’s a lot of interest in it due to the extra stability it provide when working on hills and slopes. It’s safer to operate than standard tankers,” Darryl explained.
“All in all, we’re very happy with how business is going in general. Last year was a bit slower than usual purely because of milk prices. It can be hard to manufacture products that you hope to sell to an industry that is cash strapped.
“But, we export to 27 countries which means that generally there is always have a market place for something in our product range and that helps greatly with production over the 12 months of the year.
“We are optimistic about the future. We are over our capacity with our current order list so we’ll be looking to take on more skilled staff to work on the floor to help us meet our orders.”
It’s very much a case of onwards and upwards for OBE Waste and Agri Engineering Ltd!
OBE Waste and Agri Engineering Ltd
17 Old Bann Road
Donacloney
Craigavon
County Armagh
BT66 7PW
Northern Ireland
Tel: +44 (0)28 4062 5599
Fax: +44 (0)28 4062 4499
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.obewasteandagri.com
Taken from Irish Tractor & Agri magazine Vol 5 No 4, June 2017
OBE Waste and Agri Engineering
