Rise of Drone Use in Transportation and Logistics Requires Proper Tools for Reliable, Safe and Efficient Operation

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Rise of Drone Use in Transportation and Logistics Requires Proper Tools for Reliable, Safe and Efficient Operation

Jim Dempsey

Drones are seemingly everywhere and they are being used for new and different tasks every day. The consumer oriented drones that have become so popular are only a small segment of the market and offer only some of the controls and functions available by their commercial counterparts. Enhanced functions that include precise controls, GPS mapping and flight planning, geofencing, and larger carrying capacities make industrialized drones suitable for many commercial purposes.

Companies engaged in supply chain operations are deploying drones, otherwise known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) to serve in a wide variety of roles that make some tasks that were previously either very time-consuming and labor intensive, highly efficient, less expensive,  and significantly improving worker safety when deployed properly.

Easy with the Right Tools

The transportation and logistics environment has taken to drones in several arenas because of their ability to maneuver around and above otherwise difficult to reach areas like warehouses and shipping container ports and terminals. And part of their repertoire includes multiple ways to communicate and share information.

Cameras are standard equipment and are used not only to provide visibility to pilot the drones but also for identifying and inspecting items. Drone cameras are used to automatically read QR codes that identify shipping containers, machinery and manufacturing equipment, and they can be equipped with RFID scanners that let them locate or identify items not easily visible from the ground.

For most operations drones need to be managed or flown by operators who are more concerned with the shipping or logistics process than in the flight. They use mobile tablet computers to see what the drone sees and can assist in directing the drone to specific locations and come close enough to areas of interest that they are able to see the video being captured by the drone’s onboard camera on their tablet display. This kind of immediate and real time visibility can make a real difference in reducing the time technicians need to spend accessing hard to reach places. Operators can position the drone above machinery for close-up inspection without having to shut down operations, something that can cause significant disruption to supply chain operations. Similarly drones can cover large areas from relatively high altitudes to survey rail yards and find specific rail car shipping containers or equipment, then quickly come closer to verify the item they’ve located is the right one. This allows crews to go directly to the freight or equipment eliminating hours of searching from the ground.

Maintenance and repair crews are using drones’ high resolution cameras to perform inspections of hard to reach locations like cargo cranes or towers of containers. Drones can easily maneuver around structures at heights that previously weren't easily accessible by workers needing to take a close look at conditions. Drones are able to be quickly and accurately positioned to aim their cameras at areas of interest while workers on the ground use their tablets to control, view, inspect and document their observations.

The versatility of mobile tablets and 2 in 1 hybrid laptops have found their way to forklifts and other vehicles in warehouses and intermodal terminals where they can be mounted to the vehicles and used to control and monitor drones, then quickly and easily detached and carried with the worker to the location that needs attention.

Stay in Control Under Duress

Of course the mobile devices used in these kinds of environments need to be both rugged enough to survive the rough and often wet conditions of outdoor work, and also have high quality display screens designed to be readable in bright sunlight or in the dark if they are to be usable.

Using drones in outdoor conditions means that both the drones and the mobile computing device workers use to view and control them need to be used and able to withstand adverse conditions including bright sun, at night, in extreme cold, rain, even dust or dirt. Viewing a tablet in bright sun is impossible for most consumer grade tablets, and it’s critical to have full viewing capability when using it to control a drone and view the video or pictures. Likewise operation in rain and snow and the ability to operate wearing gloves requires that a high performance, purpose-built, rugged mobile device be paired with a commercial drone to help ensure peak performance in all conditions.

These are just some of the operational considerations to be made when deploying commercial drones.  As with any new technology deployment researching and testing the capabilities of the tools and equipment is a critical element of a successful deployment.

For more information on mobile devices purpose-built for use in supply chain and shipping terminal environments, check out the Panasonic Toughbook family of mobile device at Panasonic Toughbook and Toughpad solutions.  If you would like to consult with an experienced Mobile solution Field Engineer about Toughbook mobile devices for use in your transportation and logistics operations, contact us. 

Technology’s impact on your summer ice cream parlor

icecreamblog

Technology’s impact on your summer ice cream parlor

6 minute read

While consumers may spend their summer seeking exotic ice cream flavors—Lobster, Cheetos and Spruce Tip are whipped up, ready for the adventurous eater—savvy businesses are bringing on new technologies to help figure out things like what new flavors will sell. 

Just south of Cincinnati, across the Kentucky border, vegan and vegetarian ice cream and sandwich shop Piper’s Cafe is leveraging big data to keep up with its customers: “We are growing and we can't remember all of our customers by name and face any longer. I'm looking forward to seeing what patterns my new regular guests fall into and adapting," says co-owner Chip Atkins in a report from The Week. Cloud and mobile technology mean that ice cream shops and other small restaurants can take advantage of the kind of big data insights that large restaurant owners have been using to lower costs and boost operational efficiencies. 
 

How the restaurant industry is reading tech disruptions

Not all restaurant innovations come in the form of new flavors or food items. Some important breakthroughs arise as solutions to common problems plaguing restauranteurs—from high labor costs to declining traffic. How to use breakthroughs such as big data and other disruptive technologies dominated our conversations at the 2018 National Restaurant Association trade show. 

In a recent research study conducted by Panasonic, nearly four out of five respondents stated they believed competitors in their own industry will pull ahead if they do not adopt or invest in disruptive technology. Seven in ten said they felt companies outside their industry could disrupt them. 

And these ideas were more pronounced in the food service, hospitality and retail industries. These sectors are more likely than others to say disruptive technologies are critical to the future success of their companies.

Connected restaurants

Across all industries, three of the top five adopted disruptive technologies are cloud, IoT and robotics. Each of these technologies plays a role in the connected kitchen, where appliances all sync to the cloud, communicate over a network, can be managed remotely and even using predictive analytics. Spyce, a new restaurant in Boston, is built around a robotic kitchen, and relies on cloud and IoT. The robotic kitchen “wirelessly collects multiple orders from a bank of self-service menu kiosks, displays the names of the guests whose orders are being prepared, pipes the various ingredients from refrigerated hoppers into a wok to be cooked and tossed, and dumps the hot meal into a compostable bowl waiting on the counter below,” according to a review in Salon. 

Labor is one of the costliest elements of running a restaurant and can eat up as much as 40 percent of a restaurant’s gross revenue, according to estimates. Software that has the capacity to collect and analyze data will the connecting element of automated processes and are already making it possible for labor intensive industries across the board to run more efficiently. MaryPat Sullivan, chief nursing officer at Overlook Medical Center in Summit, New Jersey, told Healthcare IT News earlier this year that the hospital network was able to save $70 million on operational costs by successfully employing predictive analytics. Software programs such as Panasonic’s Clearview platform have helped franchise owners of some of the largest QSR chains grow at a faster rate than their corporate-owned counterparts that still operate on legacy software. These functionalities integrated with the automation capabilities of PanaCIM are already changing the landscape of kitchen and back office interoperability.

icecream infograph

Personalizing experiences

Last month, we wrote about how the hospitality and retail industry are turning to artificial intelligence to create an increasingly nuanced personal experience for their customers. Of all the industries polled in our research, 90 percent say personalization is important to the future success of their company. Furthermore, they believe that the first step is to simplify the customer experience. But there is also a divide about what personalizing the customer experience entails. According to 40 percent of respondents, “personalizing” means making it simpler for customers to engage. Only 20 percent interpret this as “being able to customize services and offerings” by using customer data analytics to predict and impact purchase behavior. 

Personalization in ordering has contributed to the widespread interest and adoption of kiosks in the restaurant industry. McDonalds see kiosks as part its digital growth accelerator that will expand choices for how customers order, pay and are served, according to its latest annual report. Similarly, Subway also announced it was planning to introduce kiosks. In Texas, a number of Dairy Queen restaurants are already reaping benefits of self-service kiosks. 

Brands that have been early adopters of kiosks have reported that the average check size is up to 30 percent higher than at the counter. These kiosks don’t just allow the restaurant to continually upsell through the entire ordering process, but customers are also given the opportunity to fully customize their order, which leads to an increasingly personalized experience.

Authors
Jeff Pinc - Director of Food Services at Panasonic

Inside next-gen manufacturing

next gen factory

Inside next-gen manufacturing

5 minutes

In mid-February, the National Association of Manufacturers kicked off a cross-country trip visiting plants in more than a half-dozen states. The trip started in Troy, Michigan at “Automation Alley.” 

Job growth from Michigan to Buffalo, NY

The trip began as the business of making things faces major changes. Today American manufacturers need to fill some 364,000 jobs, according to a report from Deloitte and NAM. Panasonic manufacturing jobs are among them. In Buffalo, New York, Panasonic is partnering with Tesla in the production of solar cells for roof tiles—a product that integrates high-efficiency photovoltaics with roofing materials—and we’re looking for next-gen workers.

According to the Deloitte/NAM report, over the next couple of years, the number of manufacturing jobs in this country is expected to climb to 3.5 million. What kind of jobs will they be?

Our findings show that most of these new jobs will be created by small to mid-size manufacturers. The majority of American manufacturers are considered “small,” with fewer than 500 employees, according the U.S. Census Bureau. Its data shows that in 2015, there were 251,774 firms in the sector and all but 3,813 were defined as small. 

Disruptive tech in manufacturing

When these manufacturers create jobs tomorrow, they’ll have titles like supply chain specialist, manufacturing execution system developer, electrical technician and analyst. These titles relate to changes brought on by everything from supply chain automation to advanced robotics to artificial intelligence (AI). A few years ago, consulting firm McKinsey identified AI, advanced robotics and IoT among two dozen disruptive technologies that would account for trillions of dollars in economic value. Panasonic is deeply engaged in the advancement of almost half of these technologies. That’s important because when you’re creating experiences, chances are, you’re going to need to stitch together many of them into an integrated solution. Our future is focused on finding ways to apply our disruptive tech expertise to make radically new experiences possible. 

Factory work is becoming a new experience. From Automation Alley in Feb., NAM CEO Jay Timmons talked about how innovation is changing work: “Some people may think ‘automation’ and ‘job creation’ are mutually exclusive. That’s simply not true. Innovation is expanding opportunities and what American workers can do."

Millennials bring new skills to manufacturing

Manufacturers must think about how disruptive technologies will change the way they do business, operate plants and train workers. Automation, for instance, means that a worker will handle more responsibilities and needs additional skills to fulfill them. Big Data skills, for instance, are important to advanced manufacturing. Panasonic’s award-winning PanaCIM is a manufacturing execution system that creates an ecosystem connecting disparate islands of data across an enterprise—production data, MRP/ERP and legacy systems. Understanding and applying such data is key to operating the system.  Millennials (often defined as those now aged 20-40) come to manufacturing with new skills like MES management, but experts say that's just the start. “Millennials have already started changing the manufacturing and supply chains -- and for the better," according to an IndustryWeek report.

In support of growing manufacturers, Panasonic has invested heavily in its vision of a new manufacturing landscape–one that supports companies regardless of size, product mix or skill level. For instance, it designed its MES Manufacturing Execution System software to optimize the supply chain as a full-blown package and as an easy-to-install express system for companies with limited infrastructure. Panasonic introduced pick-and-place equipment that addresses the need for smaller lot sizes and tighter control over work in process and scheduling. Additionally, the Panasonic cloud9 Innovation Center, just outside Chicago, is a comprehensive facility where manufacturers can try out new applications, speak with experts and explore production hardware and complementary technology. 

Learn more about disruptive technology and manufacturing. 

Authors
Faisal Pandit - President of Panasonic Factory Solutions Co. of America