Utilizing drones for storage and for regional deliveries – another innovation in the activities of the European freight forwarders
May 25, 2018
Following the long-distance freight forwarding, the final stage of each shipment is from the central or regional office to the end destination.
This is the stage in which the use of drones has been widely discussed recently. The international freight forwarders consider every new technology as potentially useful when it can be used for shortening the delivery time and lowering the prices for the services.
The drones can also be used in the warehouses of the freight forwarders which also can help improve the speed and limit the need for personnel which again helps reduce the final price for the logistics services.
The current problems for the companies using drones
Since the use of drones for logistics and freight forwarding is not so popular yet, there are problems related to the lack of experience of the companies from the European network for logistics which want to implement them in their work. There is also the problem with the risks of the drones colliding with civil aircraft, military aviation or with private jets. In order to minimize such risks, a close cooperation with the aviation centers needs to be established, so that the appropriate routes and times for using the drones by the European logistics companies can be estimated.
The aviation authorities are still quite cautious about allowing the use of drones for commercial purposes. But the advantages of using drones for public needs and especially for deliveries from regional centers to the end destinations are great, so expectations are that in the future they will be widely used by the international freight forwarders association.
The new technologies are affirming their strong positions in commerce and in logistics
The new technologies come with more and more advantages. They provide speed and automatization of a number of different activities. The drones have already proven to be highly beneficial in this respect so it is only natural that they will become regularly used tools for logistics by the freight forwarders directory.
Expectations are that the use of drones will become common practice in the warehouses prior to their use for local deliveries
Due to the fact that the use of drones for local deliveries needs to be coordinated with the aviation authorities, the freight forwarders association has already begun implementing their use in their warehouses.
The distribution centers for goods and cargo of the forwarders throughout Еurope are the places where drones will be used for the faster organizing of the goods and cargo and for preparing the deliveries.
Advantages of using drones in the warehouses
The warehouses of the international freight forwarders are already automated, so the introduction of the use of drones is the next natural step towards full automatization in these vital centers for receiving and sending goods and cargo and for their distribution.
A very important advantage of using drones in the warehouses is their ease of use for moving the goods and cargo, while the installment of conveyor lines takes time, costs money and takes up a lot of space which can be used for additional storage or processing instead.
Apart from that, in the near future, drones can be used for palletizing as well.
The use of robots for this activity by the international freight services has already proven to be successful. This is why implementing the use of drones for placing and ordering the goods on pallets is the next logical step.
This will save money for buying and using robots and will free up more storage space which is among the main goals of modern logistics in order to succeed in offering ultimate speed, precision, and efficiency.
