SMART BUILD SPOTLIGHT - Remagin Ireland: Driving offsite success with full service offsite framing solutions and team culture
⏱️ 7 min read
Welcome to another of our SMART BUILD SPOTLIGHT series, where we profile construction trailblazers using cutting-edge technologies to raise the bar in our industry.
This is the first stop on our tour of Ireland, and we are featuring an inspiring Irish business leading the way in offsite construction. That is Howick client, Remagin Ireland. This trailblazing business is an offsite specialist, but they do not just manufacture frames and sell them - they design, manufacture and install - and hold the customer’s hand the whole way through.
This approach has helped the business grow into a national leader in offsite construction in just eight years. We talked to Remagin Ireland Country Manager Ger Fahey and Plant Manager Darek Zajas about the journey.
Watch the SMART BUILD SPOTLIGHT interview video, read the article below to get the full story or, if you don’t have time for either, scan our quick summary below.
No time? Read the quick summary here:
Remagin Ireland, formerly Horizon Offsite, has grown rapidly into a national leader in offsite construction by combining full-service framing solutions (from design to installation), a strong team culture, and the reliability of Howick roll-forming technology. Acquired by global group Etex in 2021, Remagin Ireland now benefits from expanded resources while retaining its entrepreneurial spirit. The company’s success comes from hand-holding their clients, simplifying builds with single-source solutions, and maintaining trusted subcontractor teams. With Ireland still only building half the housing it needs, Remagin Ireland is well-positioned for growth, powered by its people and four Howick machines.
Introducing Remagin Ireland by Etex
Ger Fahey, a civil engineer by trade, started Horizon Offsite with three others in 2017 to fill a gap in the market for a quality offsite solution.
At first, they prefabricated roll-formed components and exported up to 90% of them to the UK, but as the business grew, it gained more Ireland-based customers.
Then in 2021, Etex, a global brand with over 13,500 employees and over €4 billion in revenue, purchased Horizon Offsite and the business was renamed Remagin Ireland. Ger explains that this was all part of the plan:
“It’s been an interesting journey. And it means we’re sitting here really as part of a global organisation, which is a great place to be … And when we set the business up on day one, that was kind of the vision.”
Now Remagin Ireland has the resources of a global corporation behind them. That includes a large number of Etex products and solutions that are now being incorporated into Remagin Ireland’s offering to improve it even further.
The evolution of the Remagin Ireland offering
Despite being a relatively young business, the Remagin offering has evolved quickly (in part thanks to the Etex partnership). Ger explains that at first they sold just prefabricated frames, but now they offer the full solution from manufacturing to erection:
“We're taking account of fire, acoustics, thermal, and weathering. So the offering that we really have at the moment is taking all that into account. It's making sure that the offering we have to our client is giving our client the best value.”
At the end of the day, Ger says it is all about offering whatever clients need to make it easier onsite - which in this case is a single-source offsite solution, from design to installation.
Ger says their current processes are all about giving clients (contractors) what they want, a quicker, easier build. And now that they offer the full solution, they use subcontractors to deliver:
“We've got four roll-formers in our business that roll profiles….. that we produce into frames. There's certain stuff done to the frames, specific to site requirements, that's sent to site and it's installed by us onsite using subcontract labour.”
Remagin Ireland has around 10 subcontractor teams that erect onsite who work only for the company - some of whom Ger has known for 20+ years:
“The erecting teams need to be good. They need to do what we need to do correctly and safely. And they do. And we have a really good relationship with them as well because of the way we manage teams.”
Educating in offsite
Ger and the Remagin team have certainly made a good start, but they know there is still a lot of work to be done to educate people about offsite construction:
“You spend a lot of time with your new clients, educating them and the benefits and the value that you bring to their projects. And then, of course, that pays off eventually when they see the first project being completed and they see the value that's being added," explains Ger.
“Then they become repeat customers.”
Part of the challenge is also explaining how the process works differently to traditional construction and that the work needs to be put in at the design phase so that the rest of the build can go quickly and smoothly:
“We don't want it to be difficult, but we want our clients to understand offsite construction. If they do, they'll keep using it and they'll benefit from it.”
Ger says the secret to ensuring that customers can reap the benefits of offsite construction is to simply hold their hand. When Remagin Ireland does this, their clients get the best results and become repeat customers:
“So we literally hold the client's hand from day one, from the design element all the way through to finishing the project onsite … We want our clients saying, these guys are easy. It was an easy process. It was easy to build with them.”
It is always about the team
Making the entire build simple for clients is a complex process that ends onsite, but starts in Remagin Ireland’s factory during training. Darek plays a key role in this process:
“So I have 27 people under me now, so it's a big challenge … we have a yearly programme from Etex so we have [a] development plan for each individual person …”
Darek adds that joining Etex and changing systems presented another challenge. People on the factory floor were a little defensive and did not understand some of the new initiatives, like hidden safety procedures and new production procedures:
“… But after two years, we have that system … set up 100% and everyone is involved.”
True to the mark of a great leader, Ger credits the company’s ability to adapt and deliver outstanding results to the strength and commitment of its people:
“We've been really, really lucky that we've had a really good team here and the team is really invested in what we do …”
“ … without maintaining that team and maintaining that knowledge within our business, we wouldn't be where we are. So it's a real credit to the managers within the business that they're so vested in our business.
It is also because of the team that Remagin Ireland have managed to maintain their agile approach and entrepreneurial spirit, despite being purchased by a big corporation. Ger is fully aware of how lucky they are to have their staff:
“You can have lots of money, but knowledge is invaluable. And our team really has that knowledge. Across the board. And that knowledge is the valuable bit of our business. And it's the people.”
To maintain this culture, Ger and Darek say they keep a flat structure, with no silos or barriers between departments. For example, a person from the factory floor could chat to Ger anytime, and if there is a problem onsite, it is a problem that the whole team solve:
“We are like one family,” says Darek.
To keep the team tight, Darek explains that Remagin’s managers prioritise team bonding. That includes monthly town halls to bring people closer:
“Work is not the end of the world. There are some more important things as well.”
“Let’s see how fast we can grow Remagin”
It is clear Remagin Ireland has the team to continue being successful and leading the offsite construction industry in Ireland. But what is next?
“When we set up the business called Horizon Offsite, we had a five-year plan ... [to] get to a stage where we needed to bring in a bigger organisation to fund the growth from there on.”
Now that is done, it is onto the next goal - to offer more to clients, to understand how to do that within their facility, and what products are needed:
“We've really established Remagin. So now the next step is, okay, let's see how fast we can grow Remagin.”
The path to growth is fairly clear. Ger says that Ireland is only building 50% of the housing needed at present, and as one of the country’s most efficient providers of single occupancy, multi-level, residential builds, Remagin is uniquely positioned to capitalise.
The right machines for the job (and rapid growth)
When you are looking to grow a business, it is important to look at new ways of doing things, but equally important to look back at what has already worked. Like, for example, the original Howick machine that Ger and his Horizon Offsite team bought seven years ago.
Ger was looking for something agile that could do a lot, something reasonably priced, and reliable. After several months of research, Ger decided on the Howick machine, and that decision has helped drive business growth. The only problem was that one was not enough:
“We had one machine. What happens if that machine broke down?... It never broke down. Which is a real credit to Howick because that machine didn't break down once, probably in the two and a half years that we had one machine.”
Eventually, they did invest in a second machine. And a third. Now they have four Howick machines in operation. Darek says they have figured the machines out now, and they still almost never break down as long as they have proper maintenance:
“[We treat the Howick machines] like our babies. You need to take care of them, and then you have correct results when you're producing the materials.”
“We have a WhatsApp group. We open it when we have any issue, it's very fast response and … parts ordering has a one-week lead time, which is very strange from New Zealand … much faster sometimes than from the UK.”
Part of their maintenance process is to check the machines every three hours, to always check the first panel, and to regularly service everything. Ger says that again, this works because of the Remagin Ireland culture:
“The machines are part of our business. Critical to our business. We don't have a business without the Howick. Roll-formers need to be taken care of, and the team does that. And that's the culture, again, within our business.”
