Pit & Quarry, October 2017
MAPPING RESERVES INVENTORY ANALYSIS The rapid development of the market has been a sight for Graham to see as well We would have laughed four years ago about mapping with a camera on a DJI drone Lewis Graham says Today thats serious technology Drone budgets are a real thing Rice discussed this development which is an indicator of 3 our industrys progression with drones during an educational session at the show When we used to go to companies theyd say they have an exploratory budget to look at new technologies Rice says They just wanted the capability to test equipment out Then people started getting drone budgets Now the drone is falling into an operational budget Most aggregate producers are flying drones themselves these days According to Tony Jacobson vice president of product at Stockpile Reports 85 percent of his companys customers are flying drones on their own Fifteen percent of it is happening with the networked Aggregate producers were more open to using drones once the Federal Aviation Administration simplified its rules in August 2016 UAV industry experts say drone services says Jacobson referring to the aggregate and construction market specifically Generally the expectation among UAV industry leaders is that more end users will ultimately take on flight responsibilities themselves I cant see the industry scaling if users are not flying their own drones Graham says Its probably not cost effective Companies now are flying their own drones that two years ago said they wouldnt They cant see how to do it themselves without internalizing at least part of it Mike Winn CEO and cofounder of DroneDeploy agrees more end users will be taking on this added responsibility When a lot of companies first use a drone they will contract someone to do it he says But when they realize how easy it is there are reasons to bring it in house Typically the trend is toward more in house management scaling it out Service providers are going to be doing other important things in the long term Developing an internal drone training and maintenance program isnt a bad idea Two representatives at Rio Tinto a company focused on mining made a strong case for formalizing drone training and maintenance at InterDrone While Rio Tinto isnt an aggregate focused company the companys use of drones is very similar to the drone use of aggregate producers We have never crashed a drone says Andrew Carey Rio Tintos senior engineer and director of drone operations who is 54 PIT QUARRY October 2017 pitandquarry com PHOTO COURTESY OF KESPRY Who deserves more pay URC Ventures David Boardman explores whether a drone pilot should be compensated better or worse than a commercial truck driver in an article at www pitandquarry com who deserves more pay 5 4
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