Panel Duct won the top Innovation of the Year award at Irish Times InterTradeIreland's Innovation Awards
For Conal O’Neill, Research and Development Manager of Panel Duct, winning the top award at Irish Times InterTradeIreland Innovation Awards last week came as a pleasant surprise. “We would never have expected a product for the construction industry to be singled out over innovations in areas like life sciences, ICT and renewable energy.”
“Winning this award hopefully gives the inspirational message to the next generation of engineers that you don’t have to be working in renewable energy, or at the frontiers of medical science, to gain recognition for coming up with a clever innovation. Our innovation has come about simply by thinking about how an existing process can be accomplished in a more efficient way.”
Finding a solution to a common problem
The idea for Panel Duct came about when Walsh Mechanical Engineering, based in Ballinrobe in Mayo, spotted a consistent problem in building fitouts with ventilation ductwork. Up until now, the type of galvanised metal ductwork available on the market has been delivered to site fully assembled. This means it is generally quite bulky, expensive to deliver and requires significant storage space on-site. This metal ductwork then has to be insulated, which is labour intensive and time consuming. All in all, the whole process of installing the ventilation ductwork requires three separate tasks, by three separate crews. All of this costs time and money.
Seeing all of these issues, Walsh Mechanical Engineering decided to look for a solution. They spent about 4 years and invested over €1 million into R&D – all during a difficult recession. They looked internationally to find machinery capable of manufacturing their panels, eventually coming up with a feasible design for a pre-insulated flat pack duct panel system. And so Panel Duct evolved from finding a solution to a problem, to becoming a new product.
What makes their product innovative is that the flat pack panels click together onsite, so they are not bulky or expensive to deliver. They are already insulated, and the panels are reusable. Installation workers can be on and off site in one-third of the time a of traditional duct worker, providing huge savings in time and labour costs.
Taking the product to market
Panel Duct completed their first installation less than a year ago, and are completing approximately one project per month as they prepare to gear up for full scale manufacture of the duct panel system. They currently have less than 5 direct employees, but that is expected to grow to 10 by the end of this year. They anticipate that once they get to full scale production sometime next year, they will need another 20 people on staff.
Asked what advice he would give to other businesses, Conal said: “I encourage anyone with an interesting concept for a product that will save time labour and/or money to get in touch with the Local Enterprise Office and talk to them about the vast array of supports that they offer, not just in terms of financial aid, we’re talking about access to advice, encouragement and mentorship from genuine industry professionals.”
"It is important to periodically take time out, away from the everyday rush to get through the day, and really think about how product and process redesign can improve the service that the business offers. We have spent considerable time and effort working this innovation through the development process and can now reap the benefits of going to market with a genuinely unique product."
What's next?
"For the future, the plan is to take advantage of the momentum that has arisen from the credibility associated with this prestigious award and ramp up our production capacity as rapidly as possible. There are immense sales opportunities in Ireland, the UK and beyond," Conal said.
For more information
Find out more about Panel Duct here.
For more on the winners of this year's Irish Times InterTradeIreland Innovation awards, click here.
Find out more about how InterTradeIreland can help small business here.
To contact InterTradeIreland directly, see their website.