ARTICLE
Increasing the dollar value of every tower visit
INCREASING THE DOLLAR VALUE OF EVERY TOWER VISIT
Written by
Josh Meler
Chief Marketing Officer
The Telecom industry has enduring challenges with both skilled labor shortages and work-order backlogs. The good news is that there is a path forward in the 3d data captured from drones. The key though is understanding how and when the quality of drone data directly translates into saved truck rolls.
Tower companies have growing client request backlogs, fueling the need for increased site activity. However, the industry also faces a shortage of labor to perform site visits. In a recent report, the Communications Infrastructure Contractors Association (NATE) cited a continued downward pressure on contractors to reduce their pricing to meet “take it or leave it” OPEX and CAPEX pricing matrixes. And because the costs of site visits are largely fixed (travel, crew, truck, gear, insurance, etc), in order to maintain profitability – quality and safety are sacrificed.
Maximizing the value of tower visits
So how can we pay tower technicians better, while simultaneously lowering the costs of site work? The obvious answer is to increase value of every visit and climb. To do this, we must first find a way to minimize visits that have a low return on investment. This means reducing time spent traveling (and not performing work), reducing the need for physical site visits (often redundant and limited in scope), while increasing the quality and speed of customer responses (provide answers that accelerate revenue).
To maximize the value of a site visit, we need to shift work away from mundane tasks like caliber measurements, space exploration, and equipment photographs – to instead performing physical work on a tower. We need to decrease redundant truck rolls that largely serve to answer questions about the active state of a given tower – to site visits that have a direct correlation to revenue.
To do all this, tower companies must adopt drone data into their workflows.
When drones don’t increase the value of a visit
Before we jump into how drone data can reduce in-person site activities, let’s first address when drone data does NOT increase the value of a site visit. Just like with traditional site visits, there is a fixed cost of mobilizing a drone operator (travel, pilot, car, insurance, internet access). And while the cost of this visit is less than that of a skilled technician crew, it’s important to understand the usability of drone data.
For years, the tower industry has trialed the use of affordable, hobbyist-class drones to generate photos, 3d models, and digital twins of critical sites. And although the use of these drones decrease time on site, they do little to save an additional truck roll.
For example, if there is a structural question about a tower, an engineer must climb the tower to gather precision tower dimensions. If the lower-res 2d photos and 3d model shows an area that could potentially have an issue, a technician must visit the site to confirm the issue. If tower drawings or a standard report need to be generated, a site visit is required to fill in gaps that existing legacy data and drone data cannot address.
If physical structural attributes cannot be extracted from a digital 3d model at the prerequisite accuracy, a truck roll is not eliminated – in this case, drone data simply prolongs another visit.
So then how do I increase the dollar value of every DRONE FLIGHT?
So the question then becomes, how can we increase the value of every DRONE flight / visit? The crucial answer lies in the repeatable uses of the data collected. Can the 2d photos and 3d model generated from your initial drone flight accelerate your inspection process? Yes, but this is the lowest common denominator for drone data utility. Can that same dataset then be used again to gather structural measurements? The answer is NO for traditional drone collections. Can that same dataset be used to regardless of the existence of high-quality legacy data? The answer is NO for traditional drone collections. Can that same dataset be used by AI to generate drawings or analysis with any meaningful degree of confidence. The answer is NO for traditional drone collections.
Only Engineering Class drone data provides reusability over the tower lifecycle.
When drone data can generate a 3d Reality Model that provides millimeter-accuracy and near-complete surface coverage, many of those mundane in-person tower activities can be done virtually (and in some cases automatically). Engineering Class drone data can be reused to offset many of the low-margin in-person activities discussed earlier.
Will drones take away technician jobs?
No. Not only will drones NOT take away jobs, but they can provide a means to increase pay and decrease output pressure.
Tower visits will always be required in some capacity. At the moment, site visits and climbs are need for everything from a mundane measurement to a maintenance repair. Integrating Engineering Class drone data into traditional workflows refocuses technician roles to higher margin tasks, duties, and responsibilities that have require physical work – thus increasing the value of every hour of billable work by technicians or mechanical engineers.
Alternatively, another business model could involve technicians and engineers logging into an online portal and perform duties remotely, as they would in the field. Virtual visits can be done prior to truck rolls, regardless of time of day or weather. And when a visit is required, you can ensure the right people, arrive with right equipment and parts to get the job done quickly.
Think about it
On one hand, we need to find a way to better compensate technicians and engineers while reducing pressure to keep up with requests. On the other, tower companies need to derive more value from historically low-margin tower activities. By adopting Engineering Class drone data into workstreams, many mundane activities can be done virtually or automatically, and in-person site visits shift to higher-margin activities that require physical work – like repairs, additions, or modifications.
Work can be done faster. Customer request backlogs are greatly reduced. Operational expenditures decrease. Revenue is accelerated. And the dollar value of every in-person visit increases – providing greater elasticity to better compensate skilled laborers.
