Talking acquisitions and industry trends with Joy Global’s product manager

“We’ve got an ever-expanding underground hard-rock product line with our recent acquisition of MTI and the organic product initiatives we have going,” says Eamer.

“So what Montabert brings to the table is that heart of the developing drill jumbo, which is the rock drill. It also brings a very strong OEM drill network and our direct to customer service model is allowing us more touch points with the end users now to provide them with drilling solutions, in particular the Montabert drifter conversions.”

Eamer spoke with MINING.com in March at PDAC.

MINING.com: Who are you?

Douglas Eamer: I am Doug Eamer. I am the Manager of Commercial and Product Management at Joy Global.

MINING.com: What does Joy Global do?

Douglas Eamer: Joy Global is a service solutions provider to the mining industry. We focus on a directed customer service model. Our products are both P&H and Joy and have had over a 100-year legacy with the industry.

MINING.com: The Montabert acquisition is almost a year old. How is the integration going?

Douglas Eamer: The integration is going great. We knew prior to the acquisition that Montabert was going to be a great fit—95 year manufacturing history, engineering history, great people, great culture and a really, really strong product. The Montabert rock drill is amongst the most reliable and cost effective in the world, and overall it has been a great fit with the P&H and the joy legacy we have today.

MINING.com: What was the market opportunity for Joy Global brought by the acquisition?

Douglas Eamer: We’ve got an ever-expanding underground hard-rock product line with our recent acquisition of MTI and the organic product initiatives we have going. So what Montabert brings to the table is that heart of the developing drill jumbo, which is the rock drill. It also brings a very strong OEM drill network and our direct to customer service model is allowing us more touch points with the end users now to provide them with drilling solutions, in particular the Montabert drifter conversions.

MINING.com: What is the work pending with this line?

Douglas Eamer: The work pending with this line right now is we got a new drifter right now in development and it is going to be designed for ease of conversion. So it’s going to allow us to adapt to competitive drills more seamlessly in the field.

MINING.com: With the downturn, how has product development changed and how have you been dealing with the market?

Douglas Eamer: You know aside from the just commodity prices being down and the market being extremely challenged we are seeing our customers both greenfield and brownfield having to develop more difficult deposits, meaning deeper deposits, which is causing capital expenditures, operating costs increase as they go deeper. So we’re coming up with cost effective ways to help them offset that. We are doing that through a number of different ways. One is bringing the first SR Hybrid Electric LHD to market, which is going to vastly reduce the number of underground emissions and lower the operating costs. Also our new drifter product line is going to help reduce those operating costs underground for our customers.

MINING.com: What are the big trends that we are looking forward in the future?

Douglas Eamer: There’s a lot of buzz today in the industry in regards to battery technology and the elimination of diesel underground. I know that there are a number of mining houses, a number of research institutions and a number of manufacturers that are tackling this problem in a number of different ways. The question is going to be who comes with the best solution to the problem.

Joy Global’s Montabert HC-109 Drifter. It is designed for face drilling, long hole, scale, and bolting in both surface and underground applications.