On background
EDM started in early 2008 as a manufacturer of drilling rigs. Many clients trusted us from the beginning thanks to the extensive experience of Gary Morton and Nigel Smith. Although as EDM we have only been around for a few months, our management team has over 20 years experience in the mining drilling business.

We have three main business areas: the fabrication of our EDM drills; the repair and overhauling of machines; and the representation business for Schramm in Chile. We are growing well beyond our initial expectations, and we expect our after-sales service to be very significant.

On the EDM-2000
We have started with the EDM-2000 model, a drill that has a niche in the market because it is not manufactured by other players. The EDM-2000 may be positioned between a small mobile rig and a deep capacity rig. It is also a multi-purpose drill that can do both diamond core drilling and RC drilling. Something unique to our EDM-2000 model is that the control panel can be moved around so the operator can work much more comfortably. Moreover, it is a very user friendly machine.

On growth
We have experienced very high levels of growth since the beginning of the year, to the point that we have already sold over 30 drills and we expect similar success with our next model EDM-1200. Moreover we receive many machines  that need to be serviced, and we have also become the representative for Schramm products, a very well known brand on the market.

We started the company with 20 employees and by the end of the year we will be around 80. Our aim is to reach a manufacturing capacity of 8 drills per month (we are at 4 per month at the moment). We will increase to 6 next month and we believe that 8 per month should be the maximum in order to maintain the levels of quality that the clients need, and to keep some capacity for our repair services in both our products and Schramm products. Another reason we don’t want to go over a certain size is that we want to be very direct and flexible in our relationship with our customers.

On EDM’s advantages
An important characteristic of EDM is that the main managers are closely involved in the production process themselves. That boosts the quality control and clients appreciate that. On the other hand, we make sure that we don’t put obstacles to our production process. Our production plant is very open and transparent, clients may visit us to see their own machines and follow the process closely, which is something unthinkable in other manufacturers.

Our main competitive advantage is the quality and the professionalism of our production team. Talking to the general manager is having a direct line with the production process. We are already known in Australia, South Africa, Peru, Brazil... Our main clients are Geotec, AK Drilling International, Major Drilling, Adviser Drilling and DrillCorp Sahara.

We are very careful on the providers we select: we only use high quality brands. Our drills include Cummins and Detroit engines for instance, that are very reliable. We don’t do savings on the quality of the machine. We know that our drills will need to be serviced at some point, but we’d like that to happen later rather than sooner.

Prospects
Considering that we have only been operating for a few months, we are very well positioned in the market. We feel that the industry supports us and that is very important, especially in these first stages of our venture. That is why we have decided to expand, but we will ensure that we grow sustainably. The mining industry is going through a boom and we need to be there and make the most of it while it lasts.