Eddie Cunningham - EDS owner/ brief career summary.

I started my practical engineering training with Ruston Gas Turbines Ltd in Lincoln UK where I went on to study engineering at Sheffield polytechnic. In 1990 I started my design career with Gem Sprayers Ltd, designing agricultural spraying machines mainly for the UK market. Initially all drawings were done manually on a drawing board, here I progressed to 2D CAD having studied Autocad at night school for 2 years.

Within a short space of time, I was promoted to Engineering manager. This gave me many opportunities to travel throughout Europe and the USA working on various projects including a major assignment to achieve compliance for a range of machines with European road regulations (TUV Germany and DRIRE France) for which I was awarded the 1999 Case worldwide product safety award.

I subsequently moved to another UK sprayer manufacturer, Househam sprayers in 1999 as Engineering manager, working again on many diverse projects including the introduction of advanced liquid control systems, electronic Euro 3 emission engines, air suspension systems and many others. My first introduction to 3D CAD was in 2000 when Househams adopted Solid Edge 3D software. The benefits over the 2D Autocad system used previously were immediately obvious and I have been an enthusiastic 3D CAD user ever since.

I emigrated to NZ in 2003, initially working for Farmservices Ltd Pukekohe, then for a small Auckland based design consultancy. I have worked on a wide range of projects in a variety of industries including electronics, infrastructure projects, food machinery, agricultural machinery. I have been using Solidworks software since 2004.

I decided to start my own business in August 2009 as I had a desire to be in control of my own destiny and realised that I possessed the necessary skills and attributes to provide a top quality design and drafting service to my clients. I relocated the business to Nelson in May 2015.