EDMS owns GOS Drilling, which holds a major exploration contract for China Shenhua Energy’s Watermark project in New South Wales.

Another subsidiary previously supplied a mine mixer for the underground coal and hard rock sectors, while subsidiary Australian Gas Drilling caters to the coal seam gas sector.

The company has been undergoing management changes since managing director and chief executive Ashley Pattison resigned in late April.

His replacement, Steve McCoy, provided an update in a presentation yesterday.

A slide of the current management tree revealed that at least nine positions – varying from human resources roles to technical, business and maintenance management –were “to be announced”.

McCoy said the initial appointments for the executive team were complete but added there was a lack of middle management competencies in areas such as accountability, planning, resource management and understanding of the contract process.

The contractor is recruiting for a business manager and a technical manager, and also seeks to fill a key role in the area of procurement and logistics.

McCoy also discussed problems with contract management at the company, revealing there was no coordinated process, plus a lack of “care and diligence throughout the chain”

He has implemented a contract management process to resolve the situation.

Looking at operations, McCoy said drilling efficiency was about 20-30% down on competitors and there was a high cost of “in field” supervision.

To fix these issues he hired a drilling consultant to review operations and make recommendations.

He said existing supervisors were put back to drilling roles, while a business manager was appointed along with two supervisors.

Other improvements were made to fix administration expenses and inefficiencies along with periods of “extended downtime” caused by a lack of parts and consumables.

EDMS also intends to overhaul its branding and the way it interacts with customers.

The company’s recent annual result was a 68% fall from the previous financial year.

About $1.38 million was lost from the write-off of inventory while the Mine Mixers investment caused a write-off of $197,000.

EDMS shares closed down 2.4% to 4c yesterday.