Blog Posts Drone Testing: One More Example of Innovation at Saddle Creek
It looked like something out of Star Wars, but the unidentified object flying inside our Lakeland, Fla., warehouse yesterday was actually a drone.
The Innovation Lab at our headquarter campus has been actively testing the use of drones in production environments. Equipped with specialized scanning hardware and software to perform cycle counts and physical inventories, drones may prove to be a viable solution for our clients with high-density racking, narrow aisle widths and 24/7 operations. With skilled hands, and ultimately autonomous movement, Saddle Creek and our technology partners have proven via live-trial field tests that these mobile flight vehicles can capture location and pallet data at all X, Y, Z positions with minimal human interaction, at a speed not replicated by traditional MHE.
What is driving the beta testing at Saddle Creek? Our CIO Donna Slyster explains, “Innovation is important in the 3PL industry. This is especially true in the ecommerce arena where time is of the essence, and shipment quality is assumed at, or very near, 100%. At Saddle Creek, we understand that our clients not only expect us to provide excellent service but also to deliver new solutions for getting their products where they need to be quickly, cost-effectively and seamlessly. Drones have great potential in this regard.”
We’re excited about the possibility of incorporating drones in our 3PL environment and look forward to sharing more information about this innovative solution in the near future.