Drones in your business, Advice, Guidance, Consultancy.

Iprosurv Advice, Guidance, and Consultancy services. Over the last few years, drones have seen a meteoric rise in popularity, with the development of ever more capable drones with more technically advanced sensors and payloads. It is no surprise companies and organisations are looking and want to incorporate some sort of drone application into their workflow, that’s why we have introduced Iprosurv Drones in your business, Advice, Guidance, Consultancy.

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Iprosurv as a company has been operating within the drone sector for several years, in fact since 2014. During this period, we have seen many changes and have gained a vast amount of knowledge and experience varying from – what drones are on the market, capabilities of drones, regulation, licensing, maintenance, and upkeep of a drone fleet to planning operations and airspace restrictions and changes, and management, it’s fair to say we have a huge knowledge and experience of the drone market.

So, from our experience when it comes to integrating drones into your workflow, there are usually three scenarios’

Running drone operations in-house can seem an extremely attractive proposition, why outsource when you can do it all in-house? One of the considerations is that sometimes the client and that could be you or your client does not exactly know what they want, this leads to the apprehension of the capabilities of not the drone but drone pilots and the organisation.

In-house operations

Pros:

• Cost saving (potentially but let’s see later).
• Use in-house resources.
• In control of resources.

I think it’s fair to say that cost-saving would probably be an organisation’s key goal and be the biggest driver of in-house operations.

Cons:

• Training individuals to use and fly drones.
• Equipment (what is the best drone to buy for my needs).
• Maintenance of equipment.
• CAA (Civil Aviation Authority) Operational Authorisation application.
• Operations manual writing and submission and yearly submission on renewal.
• Continual regulation updates – an operations manual is a working document.
• Insurances.
• Legislation changes, CPD (Continual Personal Development) and drone pilot currency logging.
• Drone planning software (there are multiple, one solution does not fit all, thermal, agricultural, vertical missions, etc).
• Flight planning, Pre-flight risk assessments, on-site risk assessments, post-flight documentation, non-standard flight applications.
• Personnel (pilots, chief pilot designates, responsible person can’t be a pilot).
• Case management system (automated landowners, data delivery, servers’ storage big data).

The list above could go on and on, but this is just something to get you thinking about how in-house drone operations could look and what it could involve.

So let us look at out-sourcing, Iprosurv has been providing fully managed drone solutions to our clients since our start so again we know what we are talking about, in fact, we are the only provider of complete drone solutions with full UK coverage.

Out-sourcing

Pros:

• No need to have trained drone pilots as it is all done for you with outsourcing pilots.
• Equipment costs are zero as the drone pilots provide their own equipment.
• Equipment maintenance is zero.
• No need for your own Operational Authorisation.
• No need to write, submit an operation’s manual and submit yearly for review.
• CPD and drone pilot currency maintained by an outsourced company.
• No need to buy or rent multiple drone planning flight software or equipment.
• All flight planning covered from pre-flight to post-flight analysis.
• No need to set up a new department to facilitate drone operations.
• Case management, notifications, landowners, data delivery is done by an outsourced company. (Iprosurv has its own bespoke flight and case management system).

Cons:

• Cost a little more.
• Reliant on outsource company.
• Reliant on outsource company business continuity.

In the beginning, we said there were two options, what if there was a third option that could give all the advantages of both options without the disadvantages.

Let’s have a look at how this third proposition could look, let’s call it a managed service.

Managed Service:

A managed service lets you plan the implementation of drone operations into your business or organisation, but with a helping hand and advice on the way, from start to operation, building solid foundations for your drone capability but with the support of a knowledgeable, professional drone operating company.

We can then look to take it one step further, start on the drone operations you want and within your training, which we can provide.

Complex operations can be outsourced, but as you grow, and your operational capability grows you can take on more complex operations in-house.

So, to start we could:

• Discuss your needs and formulate a plan.
• Train your drone pilots one or a handful to start.
• Advise with equipment choice.
• Oversee maintenance is completed and training provided.
• Aid with planning drone operations.
• Conduct drone operations under our operations manual and permissions.
• CPD and compliance of pilot records.
• Facilitate software solutions and drone planning software.
• Utilisation of case management software, data delivery, and notifications.

Your growing? Let’s move forward.

• Supply training on enhanced pilot qualifications GVC (General Visual Line of Certificate), BVLOS (Beyond Visual Line of Sight), VLOS (Visual Line of Sight)
• Training of pilots on complex operations.
• Facilitate bespoke areas of training and data capture, Thermal, agriculture, construction, multi-story surveys i.e., tower blocks.
• Still with your drone partner by your side to make sure things go according to plan.
• Facilitate Iprosurv bespoke in-house CMS systems.

Pros and Cons:

Pros:

• Having the UK’s only dedicated B to B and B to C drone operating company, helping you develop in-house operations from beginning to end and with continuing our support for as long as you need it.

Cons:

• Still looking for some.

I already have drones and want to grow my existing drone operations?

If you have already introduced drone operations into your workflow you will have a good idea of the potential they can bring, this may be the time to consider what else drones can do.

With the vast array of drones and associated sensors and software outputs, there is a huge potential for any business that needs big data to enhance decision making.

The different outputs from the data can reduce costs, save time, and ultimately deliver a better service.

Iprosurv have covered just about every market with our clients from structural inspections, security, engineering and many more.

Below are just some of the applications we have covered.

• Limited access inspections
• Nuclear inspections
• Precision agriculture
• Flood analysis
• Construction monitoring
• Security
• Stock monitoring
• Volumetric’s in quarries
• Engineering LOLER and statutory inspections
• Fly tipping (evidence gathering for prosecution)
• Surveillance
• Thermal Inspections
• Culvert inspections
• Digesters

If you have found drones to be of benefit to your business, let’s have a chat and see where you could go next what resources you would need, costings, equipment, software.

Or you could add Iprosurv to facilitate the new inspections for you until you find your feet and start to see the benefits……..

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