Drone Logistics

Amazon’s prime service is teasing customers with their packages being delivered about 30 mins from ordering .. via DRONES. No delays in —traffic, turns, stop signs, and lights.

Drones (unmanned aerial vehicles or unmanned aerial systems) technology has advanced so much in recent years and economies of scale offer a drone for $500 to $1,000 today. About 1,000 new personal drones that take to the sky every month and fly around without having to take any permission to fly around from any Aviation body. Guess these are still classified as Toys.

So along with personalized marketing and product offers we will also have personal delivery systems carrying individual packages to various destinations.


What are some likely implications of this development

1. Legal: Commercial drones till need permission from Aviation Administration just like any flying object. Lest they run into each other and fall on someone's head. Though I wonder how it it different than all those toy drones flying around without any permission whatsoever. Certifying Drone pilots: How will the Drone flyers be certified ? How will ensure their competency to prevent mid air collisions or on ground crashes. Will some Drones fly totally without human control ? Guided only by GPS and motion sensors ? 
2. Privacy: Potentially there will be thousands of Drones flying around capable of taking high resolution pictures from every altitude and angles. Who will define store and dispose off these pictures ! 
3. Drone Enhanced Deliveries: Will a whole fleet of Drones be maintained - as per delivery package, distance, urgency and terrain ?  Can the Drones enhance the delivery options alongwith the existing fleets wherein the drones ae only used to make certain deliveries which are outside the main routes  The Drone would be positioned on top of a delivery truck, waiting for a parcel from the driver. When loaded, it will scan the barcode on the parcel, schedule the route to the delivery point via GPS and take off to the destination. The truck will continue on its rounds. After a successful delivery, the Drone will fly back to the truck for its next delivery run
4. Process Changes: At present the supply chains and systems are focussed on consolidating deliveries to optimize transport costs but with drones single orders need to be picked and sent and fast to make that delivery in 30 minutes. Many such process and supporting system changes will be required to be made 
5. Economics: While some like Amazon may offer Drone delivery more as a Wow factor will it make large scale economic sense ? The cost of the machine, flying costs, maintenance, delivery costs per order ? Will there be premium costs charged for Drone deliveries

Inspite of these challenges some of the major players on the ecommerce and technology side like Amazon (Amazon Prime Air) and Google (Project Wing) seem to be quite serious about leveraging drones for making deliveries in the near future. 

It is going to be really interesting and I think I will be investing in a hard hat while moving around town in a few years.