Mahindra Logistics is awaiting regulatory permissions from DGCA the aviation regulator in the country to start using drones in one of its warehouses. For long, the logistics sector has been working on the use of drones or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for improving the accuracy of inventory and lower labour costs.
Mahindra Logistics has been performing drone trials at one of its warehouses. With the warehouse space growing larger everyday and race between logistics companies to expand warehouse spaces, the drone age has come to reality.
“Drone technology will reduce the number of people employed in a warehouse and also bring in more accuracy,” Pirojshaw Sarkari, CEO, Mahindra Logistics was quoted while addressing the media.
Mahindra Logistics is utilising modern technology for better utilisation of resources and better customer services through IoT at the same time.
Drones can improve the inventory rack-up and can work on speedy sorting and storage of different items. The drones will not only count the number of products being stored but will also scan them to determine their nature much faster.
“There is a lot of new-age technologies coming into the logistics sector. These technologies reduce costs and provide better analytics that enables better decisions. For example, demand planning or predicting demand is a huge area, which today customers do on their own. But they want professional logistics players to manage demand planning as well.”
Pirojshaw Sarkari, CEO, Mahindra Logistics
Drone usage in the warehouse will vary based on the operation. In a warehouse, the drone maps out the optimal travel path to the stock location. The drone has an optical system that combines with computer vision and deep learning technology – which is a sub-field of machine learning that allows it to recognise images based on a network of learning layers.
In the warehouse or a distribution centre, automation is ideally used to make gains upon existing processes by improving efficiency, speed, reliability, safety, accuracy and eventually reducing the overall cost of operation. And thus, a distribution centre fulfilment requires a highly effective blend of automation technologies to manage and control picking, packing and shipping costs among others.
Also read: ‘Cobots’ to help warehouse workers in fulfilling cumbersome tasks
