Why Drone Visual Inspections Should be Your First Choice for Industrial Maintenance
Drone visual inspections are revolutionizing the way industrial maintenance inspections and surveys are conducted. Drones offer a safer, more efficient, and cost-effective visual inspection method.
Commercial-scale industrial maintenance has safety regulations, and insurance needs to be met to speed up industrial inspections. Drones are unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that can help you conduct detailed inspections with reduced costs and fewer downtime issues.
In this guide, we’ll explain why we think drone visual inspections should be your first choice for industrial maintenance.
Why is a Visual Inspection Importance for Industrial Maintenance?
A visual inspection involves conducting a detailed survey of an asset of any given industry. Industries, including oil, gas, real estate, and mining, must conduct visual inspections to find and eliminate potential safety risks.
Thorough visual inspections give you a comprehensive overview of the current state of an asset, enabling you to make informed decisions regarding the maintenance of the asset. Drone visual inspections help uncover potential maintenance issues in the industrial asset that you need to fix to maximize the safety and efficiency of the asset.
Traditional Vs Drone Visual Inspections Comparison
| Manned Survey | Drone Survey | |
| Data Collection Post-processing | 1-2 weeks | 1-3 days |
| Delivery of Inspection Data | 1-2 weeks (including PDF files, CAD files, contour maps, and more) | 1-3 days (same as ground-based, but also orthomosaic and point cloud) |
| Total Inspection & Reporting Time | 2-3 weeks | 1-7 days |
Benefits of Drone Visual Inspections for Industrial Maintenance
Real-Time Surveys
Drone visual inspections provide you with a real-time visual report of the industrial asset under survey. The real-time video feed gives you a comprehensive overview of the current state of the asset.
Real-time surveys and inspections are ideal for identifying potential issues in industrial maintenance. Fast reporting and investigation of potential issues lead to better resource management.
Better Mobility
Manned inspection techniques and methods have certain restrictions. Manual inspections using on-ground surveyors are not always viable options. There can be hard-to-reach places in the industrial spaces that may result in hindered mobility.
Since drones are compact and unmanned, they offer better mobility, enabling you to easily inspect hard-to-reach industrial spaces. This makes drones ideal for conducting industrial maintenance inspections for oil, gas, and mining industries.
Reduced Project Downtime
Drones enable you to reduce project downtime through planned preventive maintenance routines. Unlike manual inspections, drones don’t require you to shut down your project operations during the inspection.
The project team can keep working on the development as the drone handles the project monitoring tasks.
With reduced on-site downtime, you get to save financial resources that you can use to further fast-track your development operations. Drone visual inspections allow you to make spot decisions based on the data gathered in real-time, enabling you to keep growing your business operations.
Timely Reporting
Regarding streamlining industrial maintenance, timely reporting is of the essence. Identifying and fixing an issue is much better when it’s still in the early stages. Manual inspections using manned techniques are time-consuming, and their reporting processes are less efficient.
Drone inspections give you an in-depth analysis of the industrial maintenance requirements in real-time.
With timely reporting, you can determine the damage and the material loss, and you can schedule the maintenance to ensure that the industrial processes stay operational.
Personnel Safety
Manned inspections can often get quite hard, based on the areas that require surveying. Inspectors often have to put themselves in potentially dangerous situations to gather data and insights that you need for your project.
Drone visual inspections are a great alternative to standard manned inspection techniques regarding safety. Drones can help minimize workplace-related fatalities, protecting you from insurance liabilities.
Cost-Effective
Drone visual inspections cost much less than manned inspections or aerial inspections using manned vehicles such as helicopters. Startup industrial units with budget constraints can use drones to conduct visual inspections to ensure all their business operations stay on track.
A live visual inspection using drones doesn’t require a lot of manpower compared to traditional inspection techniques. This results in a considerable decrease in the costs of visual inspections for industrial maintenance purposes.
Better Data Recording
Drones use high-end cameras and cutting-edge motion and light sensor technologies to capture high-resolution video feeds. The data captured using drones contains minute details that you can analyze to determine industrial maintenance issues.
Companies can use drones to capture and record essential data regarding the current state of their industrial assets, which they can use to streamline their future maintenance decisions.
Conclusion
Drone visual inspections are a great choice for industrial maintenance needs to maximize time and cost efficiency. And with the personnel safety benefits you get with drone inspections, industrial unit owners can benefit greatly from state-of-the-art drone technologies.
At GIS Drones, we are committed to providing our clients with the highest level of service and professionalism. We understand the importance of accuracy and attention to detail in our work, and we strive to exceed your expectations in everything we do.
Contact us today to learn more about our drone visual inspection services and how we can help you improve the safety and efficiency of your operations in the UAE.
