Bosses at high-tech firm reveal Limerick goals

MANAGEMENT at an American medical technology firm have started to recruit people from other industries for its 850 jobs in Limerick, amid a tight labour market.

Edwards Lifesciences is planning to create the roles at a new state-of-the-art facility at the National Technology Park.

Staff there work to make artificial heart valves.

Rather than strictly recruiting people from one particular industry, Andrew Walls, the vice-president and general manager of Edwards Lifesciences in Limerick says “attitude and aptitude” is key when it comes to hiring.

“I am confident we can train new team members on the technical side when they join us with a desire to learn and grow. We place an emphasis on the development of our employees to ensure our people are thriving in their professional and personal lives,” Mr Walls told the Leader.

He pointed out that employees are given opportunities for technical training and assisted education away from the Edwards Lifesciences premises. “Since start-up, many employees have seen significant career advancement at Edwards within their original discipline and into other areas of the company.

"We actively rotate employees across other disciplines to ensure they have a thorough understanding of the overall business, along with opportunities to broaden their thinking and overall view,” he added.

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Edwards Lifesciences - which unveiled its initial plant in Shannon in 2018, then announced plans to invest €160m to move into Plassey. It retains a base in both Limerick and Shannon.

At present, the firm is seeking staff in areas like the assembly of medical devices, warehouse operations, quality inspection, manufacturing engineering, quality engineering plus human resources and finance.

Mr Walls said the company’s manufacturing plant in Limerick, which extends to more than 190,000 square feet is among its largest in the world.

The majority of the company’s growth will happen in Limerick, although a number of its workers will remain in its base at the Shannon Industrial Estate.

“Due to the size of the facilities, our Limerick site will house the majority of growth, with Shannon growing as well as we continue to add production lines to both sites and activate our second shift capabilities,” said Mr Walls.

And while 850 workers in Limerick remains the target for Edwards Lifesciences in Limerick, he stressed it’s not “an upper limit”.

“We are continuing to build out our operations as planned and scale up our production capabilities to support patients globally.

For example, this past spring, we announced on social media we received additional regulatory approvals which help us further serve patients around the world.”