What was demand like for Tumi Raise Boring’s equipment and services in 2021? 

2021 was a great year for Tumi— we had more sales of equipment and machinery than ever before. The instability in the financial market provoked by the pandemic has pushed up the price of metals like gold and silver, which has been great for the mining industry. 

Additionally, the political instability in Peru encouraged us to expand operations, something we have been considering for a while. As a result, Tumi has moved into Brazil and is starting operations in Mexico and Canada. Additionally, we moved much of the fabrication of the company’s operations to Texas and are proud to say that some of our equipment is Made in America. While all of our engineering and design is still based in Peru, we are looking into expanding our robotics engineering team into Houston. 

How has Tumi advanced towards becoming a raise boring specialist? 

Tumi purchased a shotcrete robot that does concrete lining on the interior of raise bore holes. We currently perform this service as a contractor, as it helps to sustain the actual hole itself. We are also partnering with Canadian-based Dumas to start bidding on projects as a complete provider of the entire raise bore system as well as for tunneling and support. In this sense, Tumi has advanced towards being a complete provider of raise boring services.

How is the company bringing automation into the raise boring space? 

Tumi always pushes the limits when it comes to technology, particularly in the raise boring field. The future of mining is to be fully remote controlled, and in 2022 we began work on a fully remote-controlled raise boring machine. With this, you would be able to control a piece of equipment from Canada that drills a hole in Peru, for example. Tumi has also been working on the automation aspect of this type of machine and currently has all data parameters necessary for this type of work. The drilling procedures for automated raise boring are not that different, so the largest obstacles will be the physical movement of drill pipe. This is something we are working on at a smaller scale. There are currently no fully automated raise boring operations in Peru. Tumi was the first company to introduce semi-automation with its SR line of self-anchoring, self-leveling equipment. We are at the forefront of this type of innovation in the field and will be the first to achieve full automation. 

What other technological innovations has Tumi been working on recently? 

In addition to automation, we are shifting towards electrification of our equipment to eliminate pollution caused by diesel motors. Moving forward, all of our crawlers will be battery powered. This transition is a bit contradictory to Tumi’s value proposition as we historically perform raise boring operations primarily for ventilation — to let in good air and get out bad air. Technically for us, the more pollution, the more work we can do. As a result of this tension, we have created a whole new market for raise boring on the production side, which is where our SR equipment comes into play. We drill smaller holes around a larger hole and set off a blast, allowing the ground to collapse into an empty space. This is faster, safer, and more efficient than the previous blasting method. Tumi has essentially created a new market for a production technique that previously did not exist. This is our main focus now and will continue to be in the future.

Additionally, two innovative machines of note are Tumi’s SBM 700 SR, which has a built-in conveyor track that allows it to move autonomously, and its SBM 21 BX, which is a boxhole machine that drills holes going up. 

What are the company’s key priorities for 2022 and its growth strategy for the coming years? 

Tumi will proceed with its expansion strategy into Mexico, Brazil, the US, and Canada. Mexico has the largest raise boring market in the world, and Brazil and Canada hold significant promise. It is important that we become stable in these markets over the next two years so that we are well positioned to attack them in years to come.