Up and running eight years now, Newrock Engineering in Co Armagh has become an award-winning engineering service which has earned itself a glowing reputation for its designs. Managing Director Sammy Hughes told Irish Tractor & Agri more.
When it comes to the design of agricultural machinery, there are few more innovative and creative than Co Armagh man Sammy Hughes.
A mere two years into starting up his Newrock Engineering Ltd business venture, the company picked up a European Innovation award and today, some seven and a half years since company’s inception, the innovation and growth continues out Collone way.
For Sammy, engineering has been at the forefront of his life since his early days as a teen and today he’s recognised as a designer who produced machines of the highest quality.
The demand for Sammy’s expertise may be at an all-time high right now, but he was still good enough to take time to fill Irish Tractor & Agri in on what his company has to offer.
“We’re based in Collone, Co Armagh and we’ve 10 staff working with us here. Myself and my son David are running the company together,” Sammy outlined.
“Basically, our main products here are slurry pumps, slurry tankers, dribble bars, silage cutters and wheel feeders. We do dump trailers at certain times of year as well here.”
Tankers and slurry pumps are very much what Newrock Engineering Ltd is about. However, the company offer a much broader range when it comes to their agri machinery and not just one or two specific types.
Sammy feels the diversity is what separates them from the opposition – that and a guaranteed quality product every time.
With regards to slurry pumps, Newrock Engineering Ltd offers standard, super and mega models with 7ft to 10ft sizes as normal. Bigger sizes can be made to order from the company.
Sammy hopes that a new wheel feeder/meal mixer will also be ready to order for clients but outlined that getting the product right – no matter how long it takes – is always the priority for his company.
“We’ve developed a new wheel feeder/meal mixer here but it hasn’t gone into full production yet. We like to test a machine for years before we put it into production,” he stated.
Indeed patience is as crucial an aspect as any in making sure that a company like Newrock Engineering Ltd continues to produce the goods year in, year out.
For Sammy, it’s something that he’s learned through many years of ups and downs in the engineering business.
Having started out in the industry at the tender age of 14 or, as he puts it; “since I left school”, he knows what it takes to come up with new inventions and make sure they run smoothly for the customer.
From the day he first started his engineering career to where he is now, Sammy has earned a wealth of knowledge in between. Whether or not he could have envisioned his own business venture back then turning into the success it is today – only he himself knows.
The one thing that is for certain is that Sammy and David Hughes have endeavoured to make sure that the high demand from their clientele is met on a daily basis.
“Business at the moment is excellent. We’ve had a good year and at the minute the demand is still quite high for us,” said Sammy.
“We never really advertise here but we have clients all over Ireland from Cork all the way up to here. We’ve also got customers in Scotland, Wales and England as well.”
In 2017, the loads were being shipped over the Wales quite frequently, with 3000 and 2500 gallon tankers very much in high demand across the Channel.
Here at home, the list of clients for Newrock Engineering Ltd is long considering the company will only be celebrating eight years in 2018.
Sammy filled us in: “Alan and David Irwin, Charlie Young Contractors, Johnny Neill in Fermanagh, Francis Connolly and Padraig Gormley are some of the clients which have been with us a couple of years now and it’s great to have their support. We like to think that they’re happy with the products that we supply them with.”
So what’s the secret to it? How has a company which is not yet officially at the 10-year mark grown to have such quick success?
“I suppose it’s down to the quality of the machines,” Sammy stated plainly once the question was put to him. “We feel we lead the way in design here and hopefully things can keep going as well as they have been.”
It’s certainly a case of so far, so good at Newrock Engineering Ltd and three years ago saw the highlight for the venture so far, as the MD explained:
“Our wheel feeder/meal mixer won the European Innovation award in 2015 at the ploughing and the award was presented to us by Phil Hogan, the European Commissioner. It was a great honour for this company.”
It’s no stretch to predict that there will be more accolades down the line for this firm the way things are going.
For now however, Sammy’s looking towards the year ahead with much of his focus on the moment immersed in his latest invention which he’s keeping under wraps for the time being.
“I have a new invention coming up that I just can’t mention at the moment, unfortunately,” he said.
“So next year (2018) will be about more the same for us and hopefully we can come up with a couple of new designs as well.”
Newrock Engineering
50 Seagahan Rd,
Collone,
Armagh BT60 2BH
Tel: +44 28 3755 1115
Taken from Irish Tractor & Agri magazine Vol 6 No 1, February 2018
