Drones are becoming increasingly popular for inspecting and managing a wide range of assets. This technology allows for visual surveillance of your valuable assets with improved data collection, low cost, and increased safety.
Using drones eliminates the need for humans to visit remote and dangerous places for data acquisition physically. These unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) help you survey your assets, including skyscrapers, heavy machinery, power plants, etc., in very little time and with fewer resources.
In this article, we will discuss how to optimise your asset management with drone technology.
Traditional Asset Inspections vs Drone Inspections
| Traditional Asset Inspections | Drone Asset Inspections |
| Requires physical access and manual labour | No physical access or manual labour required |
| Limited to human-eye view | Provides a bird’s-eye view for comprehensive assessments |
| Time-consuming and labour-intensive | Quick and efficient data collection |
| Higher risk of human error and safety hazards | Lower risk of human error and safety hazards |
| May require specialised equipment or machinery | Drones equipped with cameras or sensors for data collection |
| Limited coverage area | Can cover large areas quickly |
| Higher costs for labour, equipment, and downtime | Cost-effective in terms of labour and equipment |
| May not capture high-resolution images or data | Can capture high-resolution images, thermal data, or multispectral data |
Optimise Asset Management with Drone Technology
Drone technology has greatly helped optimise asset management through aerial asset inspections for businesses of all types. This technology gives reliable survey data and ensures better decision-making.
Here are a few ways in which drones have optimised asset management and inspection:
- Minimises Risks and Hazards
Inspecting large and complex structures, remote pipelines, gas refineries, flare stacks, and other valuable assets can be very dangerous.
Physically accessing these hazardous and hostile places can put the workers’ lives at great risk. These risks are eliminated when you use drones to collect data and inspect such assets.
Drones minimise the amount of human interaction with remote assets, ensuring safety and reducing health risks.
- Quick Inspections
Drones can be deployed very quickly in case of emergency surveys and assessments. There is no need to undergo long preparation phases before examining your assets in this case.
Drones can complete the inspection in a few minutes, so most businesses prefer these over traditional asset management tools.
You can use drones both for regular inspections as well as emergency scenarios where an inspection is the only way to figure out the abnormalities in the system.
- Greater Data Quality
Drones are equipped with powerful cameras and other inspection tools like infrared detectors to gather data about the state of an asset. The information collected via drones is always more reliable and error-free.
Drones can move at certain angles and carry out well-calculated manoeuvres to conduct much better inspections. The data you get using drones is always accurate, which helps a lot in formulating preventive maintenance strategies.
- Lowered Downtime
With drones, you don’t have to shut down the asset completely to do the inspection. There is no need to set up heavy equipment and scaffolding, which means all the operations will keep running smoothly.
Drone inspections can be done very quickly as well. It means even if you have to shut down the asset, it will only last a while. Thus, drones help you manage your assets without sacrificing productivity and efficiency.
- Decreased Insurance Costs
If you use drones to inspect and manage your assets, you will significantly reduce the insurance costs for workers. With risky manual inspections, you have to put aside a hefty sum for insurance which can be financially draining.
With drones, the insurance requirements are mission-based, meaning lower costs. The injury risks are also reduced significantly when you use drones which gives more insurance safety.
- Flexibility
Drones come in various shapes and sizes. They can fly both low and high altitudes without any trouble. They can be modified to take photos and videos and record temperature changes.
This flexibility allows building developers and asset inspectors to gather all the relevant data useful when planning maintenance and management tasks.
- Ability to Reach Dangerous Areas
Drones have the power to access remote areas with great accuracy. They can navigate through tiny and confined regions to gather useful data. Drones can be used to survey places with harsh weather conditions and areas with high levels of toxic elements.
Thus, drones ensure you can monitor your assets in hard-to-reach places without putting any of your employees or inspection experts at risk.
Final Words
Using drones for inspections allows you to manage your assets properly and proactively. The reliable data gathered using drones helps you make timely repairs and avoid any major damage in the future.
Many industries are currently using drones to inspect a wide range of assets, take aerial photography and surveys, and measure structural and systematic irregularities.
If you want to streamline the asset management processes for your business, you need professional asset inspection services. Contact GIS Drones for the best asset inspection services in UAE.
