As we all know, the drone industry is evolving quickly and transforming the way many companies do business. From aerial photography to more sophisticated uses such as locating and tracking inventory inside of warehouses. Organizations also now understand that this is not all about the last-mile delivery. There are so many more practical applications and use cases for drones than last-mile delivery. 

Drones are effectively one form of an autonomous robot. There are plenty of examples of robots in existence in the supply chain already. The only difference being that this is aerial, getting to inventory more quickly, safely and accurately than a person can. It complements workers by automating highly repetitive tasks. The expectation is that you tell it what you want it to do, it will understand where it is, go about its task and automatically rectify any issues it might have identified. That’s fundamentally what it is. It is more complex than the robots on the ground, but it is going to have an equal impact on the supply chain in general.

Rick Rys of ARC recently completed some detailed research on drones.  Rys shares his key findings, other practical applications, and use cases for drones than last-mile delivery with ARC analyst Steve Banker on Forbes.com. This interview focused on supply chain and manufacturing applications surrounding drones. 

You can read the full interview here.