Manufacturing Showcase
COMBILIFT By: Russ Willcutt
F
or a company that was founded in 1998, Combilift has made extraordinary headway in terms of developing new lines of material handling equipment and expanding its global footprint, all from its home of Monaghan, Ireland. Engineers Robert Moffett and Martin McVicar founded the company and lead it to this day, overseeing its early growth throughout Europe and then into North America where it now has approximately 100 dealers representing, and often stocking, its products. Paul Short is the vice president of North American Sales, and is based in Greensboro, North Carolina. A full inventory of spare parts are also housed at this location. “Combilift was always meant to be an exporter, since Ireland is a relatively small country,” he says. “But we design all of our
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20 IMD APRIL 2021
equipment, manufacture the chassis, and assemble a few components from longtime local suppliers, such as dashboard gauge professionals, here in Monaghan ready to be shipped. We shipped to 85 countries last year, in fact.” Short says the impetus for the pace of the company’s growth as well as the diversity of its product lineup comes straight from its customers. “From the very beginning, they’ve told us what they need – machines to carry massive weights, or extremely long, large circumference metal pipes, for instance – and our job is to make it. Once we’ve addressed their need, we take a look at the larger market, because that customer may have identified what could become a new product line for us. Plus, if something is a problem in one place, it’s generally causing another manufacturer problems somewhere else.”
