How did Hofmann Engineering overcome the challenges posed by the pandemic?

Fortunately, we were able to successfully overcome the challenges we faced in 2020. We are somehow privileged to be working in mining, an industry that showed resilience amid Covid-19 relative to other sectors, especially considering the strong commodity prices we witness. Notwithstanding, we did diversify our portfolio to provide services to other industries such as aerospace, rail, agriculture and cement. Our company was able to grow at a higher rate last year than in previous years. However, we did face some logistical delays as a result of lockdowns across continents.

What facilitated the company’s growth beyond Australia?

The company has been established for over 50 years, with a strong focus on working in the mining industry in Australia. The Hofmann family wanted to grow the business, so we targeted markets with a high potential for growth worldwide and expanded to other strong mining markets such as Asia, Africa and particularly South America, where we have been operating for over 30 years.

Nowadays, we are well established and with modern workshops and skilled teams in Chile and Peru assisting both mobile mining and fixed plant equipment. There are some differences between the Chilean and Peruvian markets, particularly for fixed plant equipment and we see Peruvian mines with more HPGR units installed than Chilean mines. As a consequence, our Peruvian operation is more focused on manufacturing HPGRs which has been an area of significant growth. Both sites can assemble HPGRs and supply/repair mobile mining and fixed plant equipment for Peru, Chile and other countries in South and Central America.

As Chilean mines head underground, how is Hofmann capitalizing on this trend?

We are already very established in the Australian market where we supply complete rock drills, continuous mining and LHD loaders componentry to underground operators, which we plan to expand to South America.

Can you elaborate on some of Hofmann’s innovation to minimize operational costs in comminution?

We are always looking at opportunities to carry out product improvement on the components we manufacture; redesigning, using better materials, heat treatment and machining processes to aim for longer lifetime and therefore lower operational costs. We also conceive innovative designs and have many registered patents worldwide in various product categories.

How does the company find and retain talent considering the high level of skill you demand?

We are fortunate to have a very skilled and experienced workforce across our operations. For example, in Australia, many of our employees have been with the company for over 20 years. Hofmann is cognizant of skill transfer across the company, especially to the younger generations, since we rely on a highly specialized and particular manufacturing process. Every year we organize apprenticeship programs to recruit and currently, we have more than 60 apprentices who are trained on our sites in Australia, Chile and Peru.

What differentiates Hofmann Engineering in the competitive sphere?

Our products are known for their quality because we constantly invest in product improvement and use the best manufacturing processes in house. However, another way we differentiate ourselves is via our unique customer service experience and we leverage our network of sales and technical engineers who are as close to the customers as possible. Hofmann is also investing in keeping stock in South America in order to have components available and reduce lead times.

Where do you see a high growth potential for the company in South America?

The South American market holds significant potential for our expansion. We are established in the markets with the biggest potential: Chile and Peru. In Peru, we foresee rapid growth in the near future. We are also attentive to the Brazilian, Colombian, Mexican and Ecuadorian markets, where we operate on a smaller scale through agents or directly.

Do you have a final message to our international readership?

We have now seven factories around the world (currently building the eighth) and South America is a significant market for Hofmann Engineering, already representing 25% of the company’s turnover. We are witnessing our South American operations’ fast growth annually, which speaks to our products’ quality, price and service level in such a competitive market.

Competition in the market is healthy, drives innovation and efficiency to finally benefit customers.