Kenneally Steel was started by Denis Kenneally in 1999. The business was started on the family farm in West Waterford as a small welding business to service the needs of neighbouring farms. The welding business initially was a supplement to the family farm. Over the last decade, Denis and his wife Sarah have developed the business into a very professional engineering business.
Over the last 5 – 6 years, the Kenneally’s have diversified the business away from being dependent on agricultural maintenance work to the extent that this now makes up a small fraction of the their business turnover.
In achieving this market diversification, they had to do three things:
- Develop professional in-house management skills
- Diversify their product range
- Invest in new Technology
LEADER has assisted in the acquisition of new technology, and the rigour of applying for assistance from LEADER has also helped the management team to look at their processes differently. In the current programme, Kenneally Steel invested in an automated drilling line and 2 support gantry cranes.
Since the most recent investment from LEADER, 4 additional new fulltime jobs have been created. While 2 of the new positions are in the engineering section, 2 others are in Finance and Project Management.
This project was part funded by the Waterford Local Community Development Committee under the Rural Development LEADER fund Local Objective 2 Enterprise Development.
