April 20, 2016

Have It Your Way: Measure with an iPhone, Drone, and Airplane

Author: Stockpile Reports

Stockpile inventory management is often a real source of ongoing frustration for the companies that have approached Stockpile Reports for help.

The challenges of measuring the volume of stockpiled materials are many. These include accessibility, safety, costs, scheduling and managing competing priorities. Before discovering our service, many of our clients didn’t think they had a choice other than hiring an expensive surveyor for accurate stockpile measurement.

We’re here to make your job easier, whether you are a quarry manager or the CFO. Choose the method that works best for your location and needs, via an iPhone, drone, airplane, or a combination.

Measure Using an iPhone

The tools embedded in our Stockpiles App, and the ease of use, gives clients and executives higher confidence in successfully completing a stockpile measurement, time after time, after time. This is enabling them to be even more productive while measuring piles, in smaller sites and also across a large enterprise.

Measure Using an Airplane

This is the easiest, fastest, and most complete way to measure the stockpiled materials at all your sites. Clients receive monthly measurements for the typical price of only one fly-over by other services. This also provides them an opportunity to review how a site changes over time, and make future planning easier.

Clients also receive the fastest results in the industry — online access to site and stockpile reports are available within hours after the flight. There is no action needed from clients other than tagging materials to the already outlined stockpiles online after the flight. Labor time from clients is reduced drastically— to as low as 20 minutes after an aerial flight.

Measure Your Bunkers

Measure bunkers and bins by iPhone or drone. Bunkers containing bulk materials can be located indoors, or outside. Material to be measured may be bounded by 1, 2, or 3 walls in bay areas of varying widths at a typical site.

Typical material stored in bunkers includes:

• DOT Approved Salt and Sand
• Recycling- Utilized in the Scrap Metal Industry
• Aggregates such as Gravel
• Landscaping/ Nursery Mulches
• Animal Food
• Granular Fertilizer- Urea, Ash
• Livestock Manure Storage
• Scrap Metal storage
• Grain

Measure Using Your Drone

UAVs are now playing an increasing role in company’s strategy for providing rapid-turn production and inventory measurements.

Our clients can process drone imagery using our platform. You fly it, we’ll process the imagery. 

Need additional help, or have questions? Our engineering team has been working closely with drones and remotely piloted vehicles for nearly a decade. We’ve seen the ease of use and capabilities increase– while the size  and pricing has dropped dramatically during that time. We are experienced at piloting and operating various models and are also available for consultations. This includes helping you with flight patterns and camera angles.

StockpileReports.com is the only solution to enable enterprise inventory measurements of thousands of geographically disparate stockpiles in hours.  Our support for phones, drones, and planes provides your company the ability to develop a Stockpile Measurement Strategy to meet your business goals and improve your productivity.

How will you measure your stockpiles this year? It’s your choice. Contact us today for more information and ask us how we can help you meet your goals.