Drillmec

Drillmec, a specialist in drilling equipment for carbon-capture operations, faced a compound challenge common in the industrial machinery sector: how to accelerate the drilling of ingress points while simultaneously reducing on-site personnel exposure. Carbon-capture projects demand precision bore placement — deviations require costly rework — yet the heavy machinery involved creates significant health and safety exposure proportional to crew size. The more workers on site, the higher the risk profile. Balancing throughput, accuracy, and worker safety with conventional drive and control systems had become a constraint on both project economics and Drillmec's ability to scale carbon-capture work efficiently.

Drillmec partnered with Rockwell Automation to redesign the drive architecture at the core of its automated drilling system. The implementation centered on Allen-Bradley PowerFlex® 755TL AC drives, selected for their precision motor control capabilities and compatibility with Drillmec's existing operational technology stack. Rockwell Automation supported the full integration lifecycle — from system design through on-site testing and commissioning — ensuring the drives were properly tuned to the demanding torque and speed profiles required for carbon-capture boring. The 755TL drives provide regenerative capability and low-harmonic performance, reducing energy losses while enabling tighter closed-loop control over drill speed and positioning. This hardware-level precision control functions as the automation intelligence layer that replaces manual adjustment and reduces dependence on large on-site crews.

The deployment of PowerFlex 755TL drives delivered measurable improvements across Drillmec's key operational priorities:

• Drilling speed: Increased throughput on ingress point boring due to more consistent, controlled drive performance
• Crew requirements: Reduced on-site staffing needed per operation, directly lowering health and safety exposure
• Rework reduction: Improved positional accuracy of drilling reduced the need for corrective work
• Cost control: Fewer site visits and leaner crew deployments translated into lower project operating costs

The precision gains from automated drive control allowed Drillmec to move from labor-intensive manual oversight toward a more automated operational model — a meaningful step for a mid-market equipment company operating in a safety-critical sector.

• Precision at the hardware layer compounds upstream: Drive-level accuracy improvements reduce rework, which improves schedule and cost outcomes more broadly than the drive investment alone suggests.
• Crew size is a safety lever: Automation that enables fewer personnel on hazardous sites should be evaluated partly as a safety investment, not only an efficiency one.
• Vendor integration support matters for OT deployments: Working directly with Rockwell Automation through commissioning reduced integration risk — systems integrator involvement is worth budgeting for.
• Carbon-capture infrastructure creates new automation requirements: Mid-market industrial machinery firms should assess whether legacy drive systems are limiting their ability to compete in precision-critical clean energy projects.