How drones are improving industrial maintenance tasks.
When it comes to industrial operations, the use of drones is becoming more popular and more significant. From surveying to surveillance, these eyes in the sky can record, capture, and report on a variety of situations, from infrastructure inspections to construction progress. Drones offer safe, secure, fast, and efficient activity and results and can be applied across a wide range of industries.
The same holds true to industrial maintenance – the task of ensuring operational infrastructure and equipment is regularly inspected and fully compliant. With tight budgets, changing resources, and ageing infrastructure, companies seeking safe and efficient operations are harnessing the power of the cutting-edge technology offered by drone operators.
HOW DRONES CAN IMPROVE INDUSTRIAL MAINTENANCE
1. SAFE, SMOOTH OPERATIONS
When it comes to routine tasks such as scheduled surveillance or standardised inspections, drones are the perfect tool for the job, replacing human inspectors who face safety risks, unhealthy surrounds, the need for complicated support equipment, and time. When it comes to structures like power plants, power lines, bridges, and flare stacks, this can save organisations time, money, and energy, as well as keeping their most valuable asset – their people – out of harm’s way and engaged in more productive tasks.
2. ACTIVE INSPECTIONS
The way in which drones operate (fast, in the air, unmanned) means that plants under inspection will not necessarily have to be shut down during this time, as they would be with manned inspection. This means that plants can remain active during the inspection process, saving time and money, and increasing productivity. All this while the drone records and sends data to the relevant stakeholders – who may or may not be on-site – and who can then go through the data at their own pace.
3. COST-SAVING
Research shows that using drones for inspection and to carry our routine tasks results in an over 50% reduction in labour costs. This means streamlining labour teams but also frees up budget for the training and promotion of employees for higher level labour tasks, saving costs overall.
The latest drone technology is innovative and flexible while being efficient and reliable – this makes a drone the perfect inspection and surveying tool for industrial applications from mining operations to industrial maintenance. At DCG, we offer drone-driven commercial services and turnkey solutions for many industries across Africa.