As we reflect on the past year, it’s clear that 2025 was a period of meaningful progress, strategic growth, and continued innovation across our business. From empowering our people and advancing our technology to strengthening our sustainability efforts, this year showcased the best of who we are. Each achievement, big or small, played a role in shaping our future and reinforcing the values that drive us forward.
1. Employee Upskilling & Training
This year, we continued to invest in the people who drive our success. As our industry evolves, so too must our skills, and 2025 saw a renewed focus on continuous learning, technical development, and knowledge sharing across teams. From structured training programs to role-specific development paths, upskilling remained a core priority.
Below is a list of the training courses completed throughout 2025:
• Abrasive Wheels and Grinder Safety
• Forklift licences
• Power pallet truck / electric pallet stacker licences
• Hypermill and 5-axis training
• Management seminar
• Inspection programming
These collective efforts have strengthened our capabilities and ensured that our team is equipped for the challenges and opportunities ahead. Empowered people create powerful progress, and this year proved exactly that.
2. Exhibitions
Exhibitions remained an essential platform for connecting with customers, showcasing our innovations, and staying aligned with market trends. Our participation throughout the year allowed us to demonstrate our expertise, expand our network, and highlight the solutions that set us apart. Shows we exhibited at this year included:
September: MedTech, Galway Racecourse, Co, Galway
October: Toys for Engineers, SETU Arena, Co, Waterford
November: Plastics Live, RDS, Co, Dublin
Each event provided valuable insights and meaningful engagement, reinforcing our place as a trusted leader in the industry. We look forward to building on this momentum in the year ahead.
3. Automation Upgrades
Our automation projects continued in 2025 with the technical team developing more ingenious ways to support the production process.
The integration of the stacking and banding of the moulded roofing tiles not only resulted in higher machine outputs but also reduced the number of visits needed by shift personnel to the production cell.
The full beam robot accurately places, rotates and stacks the product neatly before pushing them through an automatic banding machine, once banded the robot then pushes the packed bundle onto the final conveyor belt for final palletizing by the shift operators.
These upgrades not only improved efficiency and throughput but also strengthened quality and safety across the production floor. Our commitment to smart automation is shaping a more agile, reliable, and future-ready operation.
4. AI Upgrades
Advances in AI technology are supporting significant opportunities in the manufacturing world. Using AI systems, repetitive tasks and operations can be significantly enhanced using smart monitoring combined with active decision-making outcomes.
In 2025 Key Plastics introduced its first in-line AI enabled vision cameras to support 100% real-time product inspection.
The smart vision system was strategically installed to support a production robot to present the finished mouldings to the camera lens for instant inspection prior to final placement into their packaging cartons.
The AI vision system instantly inspects all parts by comparing known defect images against the current image resulting in a clear pass/fail result in under 2 seconds.
Some advantages of this system include improved quality inspection, higher productivity and efficiencies and enhanced process optimisation.
These investments have elevated our quality assurance capabilities and opened the door to more data-driven decision-making. As AI continues to evolve, we’re well-positioned to expand its impact across the business.
Key intends to continue to roll-out this technology across the entire moulding plant in 2026.
5. Energy Efficiency Efforts
Sustainability remained a central theme this year, with a continued focus on reducing energy consumption and deepening our understanding of how our operations impact the environment. Improved monitoring and accountability helped us take meaningful steps in the right direction.
A major development in 2025 was our expanded use of the Power Radar Energy Monitoring Portal, which now plays a key role not only in energy management but also in preventive maintenance.
The tool gives us visibility of the normal energy consumption of each piece of equipment, allowing us to quickly identify abnormalities. If something begins to consume more energy than usual, it can indicate a developing issue, enabling early intervention before downtime occurs.
Power Radar also acts as an intelligent reminder system. If a machine is powered off for an extended period, the system automatically notifies us so we can track when and why the downtime occurred.
Importantly, it provides detailed energy insights across the entire factory, not just moulding equipment, making it a powerful, facility-wide sustainability and performance tool. Weekly reports summarising consumption and CO₂ output help guide decision-making and identify ongoing improvements.
Through better visibility and proactive management, we are laying the foundation for long-term efficiency improvements and more sustainable manufacturing practices.
A note from Sergio who is managing the project: “If you use PowerRadar every day, you likely appreciate having constant and clear visibility into energy consumption.
It’s more than just a Dashboard, it becomes a powerful tool, that will help on efficiency improvements and cost reductions. It’s highly effective, well designed and user friendly.”
6. Product Spotlight
Innovation and sustainability featured strongly throughout 2025, and one standout example was our collaboration with Irish Pride to modernise their bread delivery trays. We replaced traditional wooden trays with a durable, hygienic, and fully recyclable plastic solution designed to meet today’s performance and sustainability demands.
These new trays offer exceptional longevity, with improved resistance to wear, weather, and UV exposure, while remaining completely food-safe and easy to clean. Their optimised design also enhances delivery efficiency by fitting securely within transport vehicles and reducing handling challenges for distribution teams.
By bringing together durability, hygiene, efficiency, and environmental responsibility, this project highlights how we work closely with clients to deliver smarter, more sustainable solutions. It is a clear example of our ability to respond to market needs while driving forward meaningful, eco-conscious product innovation.
7. Community Initiatives & Charity
Giving back to the community remains a core part of who we are. Throughout the year, our team came together to support causes that matter, strengthen local connections, and make a positive impact beyond the workplace.
ReTurn Initiative: During 2025, we continued to consistently collect and return our plastics bottles and cans. Since we began collecting the Returns in 2024, we’ve recycled nearly 3,000 cans and bottles with proceeds going to local charities.
These initiatives reflect the generosity and spirit of our people. We’re proud of the difference we made this year and look forward to expanding our community outreach in the future.
8. New Key Precision Building
One of the major milestones this year was the opening of our new Key Precision facility, a purpose-built development that significantly expands our engineering, machining, and metrology capabilities. This investment strengthens our ability to deliver high-quality precision engineering, mould design, toolmaking, and validation services for customers in Ireland and internationally.
The new facility brings all core engineering functions together under one roof, including CNC production machining, mould manufacture and maintenance, metrology laboratories, and dedicated design and prototyping spaces. With a 5,000 sq ft layout and enhanced machining capacity (including 3-axis machining up to 2000 mm and 5-axis machining up to 1200 mm), the site is purpose-designed to support increasing demand for complex tooling, prototyping, and high-accuracy component manufacture. It also continues to operate in compliance with key industry standards such as ISO 13485 and AS9100.
By consolidating design, machining, and inspection into a single streamlined location, we’ve improved turnaround times, increased capacity, and strengthened control over every stage of the engineering process. This expansion reflects our long-term commitment to advancing Ireland’s precision engineering capability and positions Key Precision to support customers with even greater efficiency, quality, and technical expertise in the years ahead.
9. Newly Appointed Moulding Director
In other news, in late November this year the Board at Key Plastics agreed to appoint Evan Kearney as Moulding Director.
Evan is a qualified plastics Engineer with significant experience in scientific injection moulding, automation and process optimisation.
All the Team at Key wish Evan the best of luck in the years ahead and look forward to working with him into the future.
10. Looking Ahead
As we look to the year ahead, 2026 promises to be an especially meaningful chapter in our company’s story. We will proudly celebrate 40 years in business—a milestone that reflects the dedication of our incredible team and the unwavering support of our long-standing customers. This anniversary will not only mark four decades of innovation and growth but also serve as an opportunity to recognise the trust our customers have placed in us to deliver exceptional products year after year.
Another major development on the horizon is the progress of our new state-of-the-art cleanroom for the Key Medical division. The project is already well underway and is expected to take significant shape by Spring 2026. This advanced facility will expand our capacity in medical device manufacturing, enhance our technical capabilities, and position us for even greater collaboration with customers in highly regulated sectors.
With major milestones ahead and transformative investments in motion, 2026 is shaping up to be a year of celebration, innovation, and continued growth. Stay tuned, there’s much more to come!
