Irish firm Kirby Group Engineering has been recording strong and steady growth for several years and is on track to achieve revenue of more than €700m in 2024. Celebrating its 60th anniversary this year, the firm now employs over 1,600 employees across its bases in Ireland, the UK, mainland Europe and South Africa.

Alongside this expansion, the company, which has its headquarters in Limerick, is investing in a range of methods and technologies to secure continued growth as the construction and engineering landscapes evolve for the future.

A major element of this is ensuring the company is ready to thrive in a digital world. While recruitment continues alongside a growing list of clients and projects, Kirby recognized the potential of digital technology to allow teams to achieve even more.

Associate director, Mark Danaher, knew the information was key to charting a way forward: “We undertook a company-wide audit to gauge how ready we were to ‘go digital’ in a bigger way. A detailed analysis was carried out with regard to our business and operational processes. Kirby then identified paper or manual-based tasks and investigated how digital solutions could save time. Getting our teams to work more efficiently is a key target as this drives a better work-life balance and ensures the teams are not put under pressure.

From there, we developed our digital transformation strategy focusing on a new digital way of working within the business.”

Mark says this strategy will be key to capturing and processing business data, allowing for informed decision-making for the future: “Ultimately, having information like this readily available enables senior management decision-making to evolve from being reactive into being predictive. The projects are moving at such a pace we need to be able to predict potential issues rather than reacting to them.

We have developed a digital data infrastructure that will now centralize all of our data from across the business. Linking KAI to this infrastructure is key to its success

However, Kirby has also revealed that it is developing another tool that will also be integral to its digital capability for the future: A native artificial intelligence platform, named KAI. The goal is to position KAI as a thought partner to everyone at Kirby, a secure source of detailed information about every aspect of the company. Mark says it’s at an early stage: “We’ve been trialing KAI in the digital construction department and at the moment we’re teaching it everything it needs to know by feeding in required documentation and processes.

“KAI’s portal will ultimately be able to answer any question about the business. Access will be based on a tiered system, so you’ll need to be authorized to receive any information you ask for.

We have developed a digital data infrastructure that will now centralize all of our data from across the business. Linking KAI to this infrastructure is key to its success.”

Once it has access to all of the information, Mark sees KAI as playing a pivotal support role for Kirby:

“At a basic level, you won’t need a handbook for the job, you’ll simply ask KAI a question, but at the other end of the spectrum, KAI will be central to decision-making. It will have the power to rapidly recall and assess any similar scenarios faced by the company in the past, judge potential savings or benefits for the company or client, identify alternative options, and most importantly, optimize decisions for success.”

Mark says he believes introducing KAI at this point will add to the edge Kirby has over competitors: “The fact that AI is going to be a big part of the business is not news across engineering and construction. Grasping the concept and mastering it in a way that serves your purpose is what will offer an advantage. I’m excited by the possibilities KAI and other technology can offer this company but they wouldn’t arise without the support and buy-in of senior management. Confidence and vision have been hallmarks for Kirby over the past 60 years and will be key factors as we put this next phase in motion.”