JLR Trials Drones at Manufacturing Plants for Line Inspections, Inventory, Logistics

Jaguar Land Rover is still in the process of recovering from a massive cyber attack that knocked its manufacturing plants and business operations offline worldwide for over a month, but is already looking at modernising some of its processes to improve efficiency and turnaround time. The company has just published details of a trial it is conducting at its Wolverhampton-based Electric Propulsion Manufacturing Centre, flying drones around its production lines to conduct inspections.

The company says using a drone cuts what used to be a four-hour process down to ten minutes. It also says this is a step forward for employee safety, eliminating the need to climb up onto high platforms and crawl into confined spaces. 

JLR is using an Elios 3 drone, manufactured by Flyability, which is designed for indoor use. It is equipped with LiDAR and a thermal camera, and is operated using a tablet. Maintenance staff are able to conduct inspections from a safe vantage point as the drone creates 3D maps of equipment and monitors for hotspots indicating failure points and overheating.

Following this trial, drones equipped with bar code scanners will be deployed at the company’s Solihull Logistics Operations Centre, a 91,800 square-metre warehouse space. The drones will be used for inventory checks and stock updates, making operations quicker and less error-prone. 

JLR says the drone trial is part of a £3.8 billion annual investment in industrial modernisation, and it will be training 29,000 employees in new-age digital skills. “As we transform our facilities, we’re rethinking every part of our factories, including how we maintain and operate them. Trials like this one with advanced drone technology are helping us improve employee safety, reduce maintenance downtime and operate more efficiently. Just as importantly, they’re helping upskill our people in the latest digital technologies, ensuring our teams are part of our factories of the future,” Nigel Blenkinsop, Executive Director of Industrial Operations, said in a press statement.