Hi Friend,
I hope you've had a great week and weekend.
Skyward released the presentation and recording of their webinar last week, so I'm back to give you a recap and some commentary. If you forget or missed it, their webinar was called
Lessons Learned - Adding drones to a global enterprise
It had people from three companies:
- Power Engineers (an engineering company that is using drones on a large scale)
- SenseFly (producer of popular fixed wing UAS for industrial applications)
- Skyward IO (now part of Verizon)
Here is my brief summary of the major elements of the webinar and some commentary by me.
1. Planning is essential
More time up front pays off to capture cost and schedule savings when the job begins. (Big hint for assigning someone to be a dedicated project manager for your drone program.)
2. Executive buy-in
How they got it at Power Engineers. (If you read through my "4 biggest mistakes" presentation, you know that gaining executive sponsorship is essential.)
3. Understand multiple layers of laws and regulations.
For instance: federal, state, local, and industry-specific. Then there are financial concerns with insurance and liabilities. (Lots of project management responsibilities which should also be top on your mind after going through my presentation.)
4. Future proof your fleet
Buy at the maximum of your budget - just like computers. The pace of innovation and advancement in the drone industry is mind-boggling. Purchase from hardware and software companies that show staying power in the industry (as best you can predict). They provided a nice buying guide checklist.
This checklist was obviously a nice setup for their sales pitch. But the truth is, both SenseFly and Skyward are high caliber companies with high caliber products. So they should be on your shortlist of providers when you are ready to look for UAS systems for your company.
But please remember - your internal company drone program should NOT start with selection of the hardware and software!! That is a huge mistake.
You need to define your requirements and use cases first. Don't let marketing materials or sales figures from drone companies make your decisions for you.
There is a whole lot more about particular drone hardware and software companies I would like to say (and could say). But I don't have time or space here. Get in touch with me if you have any questions or are curious about particular companies. I keep my own short list of companies that I know and trust enough to consider for rigorous industrial applications.
I hope this recap of the webinar was worthwhile for you. You can get the recording and presentation file yourself from Skyward, but you will have to submit your name and email.
Click this link to get it:
http://go.skyward.io/WBN-LessonsLearned2-23-17_Register-OnDemand.html
Or, if you reply to me here and ask nicely, I will be glad to share my copy with you. :-)
Thanks for reading this email Friend. Best wishes with your pursuit of drones!
Best regards,
Brett
P.S. Will you happen to be in the Sacramento, California area this Thursday evening? If so, please join me at a gathering for commercial drone pilots that I've organized at a New York-style pizzeria with a great beer selection. This is under the auspices of Drone Pilots Federation (where I'm the Vice-President). Click here to check out the event. If you are in town I'd love to meet & talk with you in person, along with some pizza and beer.
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