Drone technology for Asset Inventory Management
Every year, companies carry out expensive and time consuming inventories within their warehouses and outside storage areas.
Undertaking an inventory can require a huge mobilisation of material and human resources, which often involves stopping onsite activity. This can have a detrimental impact on a company’s business.
ProDroneWorx has developed a drone inventory management process designed to automate inventories with very little human intervention. As a result of the efficient workflow process, they can save their clients a lot of money while also producing the digital inventory data very quickly and in various formats that haven’t been available until now.
Project 7 Construction was seeking an alternative way of geo-locating the company’s inventory across two large, five acre sites related to a specific project. They wanted staff members to be able to quickly and easily locate any material across both sites on an iPad or PC, so that it could be collected and then sent to alternative locations. Historically, staff members had to either walk or drive around both sites to locate the materials requested. This was very time consuming, as literally hundreds of pieces of material were stored on both sites.
Inventory management across two large outdoor sites represents a huge challenge for the best run companies. The company therefore turned to one of the newest methods now available for inventory management and that involved using drone technology, plus specialised photogrammetry and GIS software.
Using a high resolution orthomosaic with boundary measurements, grid based mapping and tagging of the inventory was be provided at both sites.
To achieve a single high-resolution map of each site, ProDroneWorx processed hundreds of individual images into a true to scale orthomosaic, giving Project 7 the ability to identify any piece of material in one viewing window. The scaled orthomosaic also meant that accurate relative measurements could be taken of the boundary or any material onsite. A high-resolution PDF with a grid and tagging system was created for each site, which allowed for the easy identification of material and more effective communication across the team.
Project 7 said: “The use of drone technology and the digital information it produces has transformed our inventory management by saving us both time and money. What used to take weeks can now take just a few days while the digital information has benefited us enormously through better collaboration and communication.”
ProDroneWorx services include surveying, asset inspection, progress monitoring, measurements (volume, area & distance), 3D modelling, orthomosaics, digital surface/terrain models (DSM & DTM), thermal imaging, and photography & video using drone technology.
Asset Inventory Management using drones can enhance operational efficiency, reduces costs, mitigates risk, while improving health and safety.
