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ASSET RELIABILITY & MANAGEMENT The Elios 3 provides exceptional data to assess and determine the condition of assets and the ability to quickly share the data amongst many stakeholders to budget and plan repairs, replacement, or decommissioning. |
SAFETY Safer, faster inspections completed with the Elios 3, eliminating dangerous work, such as confined space risks, and work at height for inspectors. It offers the ability to inspect assets thoroughly, prior to placing employees in environments that could be deemed dangerous, allowing leaders to assess complete risk. |
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MONETARY ROI The drone provides immediate savings in safety standards and inspection costs, including saving $10,000 on scaffolding per day and $3,500 per grain bin on average. |
ASSET DOWNTIME Up to 8 bins can be inspected with the Elios 3 in the same time it would take 1 bin inspection with legacy methods, reducing asset time and increasing inspection efficiency. This efficiency allows for increased up times and limits the time an asset is removed from service for inspections. |
Cargill, the multinational food corporation, is a world leader in their industry and has innovated inspection processes by deploying drones for remote access. They carefully track the value of using drone inspections to determine their return on investment, but more importantly, have been implementing this technology to protect their employees. Cargill’s adoption of the Elios drones has seen them generate huge savings and improved inspection safety standards. One of their assets that offers the biggest success story is the humble grain bin, where it all started for Cargill in the year of 1865.
Grain bins store huge quantities of grain (corn, soybeans, wheat, milo, etc.) for a short period around harvest or as long-term storage before the crop is transferred, sold, or refined. Grain bins are regularly checked to ensure structural integrity and that they can safely store grain without any leaks or air exposure. Each bin is typically inspected once a year, with more detailed inspections usually taking place every 4 to 5 years.
A traditional grain bin inspection takes at least 4 hours. Traditionally, Inspectors would have to set up equipment to safely rappel inside the bin or build and use temporary scaffolding to walk around the inside of the structure. Once inside, inspectors will spend their time in a dark environment that can be uncomfortably hot or cold, assessing the structural condition of the steel or concrete grain bin. In the case of rope access, this is a challenge as the inspector is suspended in the center of the tank and can’t get close to the walls if the entry point is off-center or the bin has a large horizontal profile. Overall, the legacy inspection methods pose risks from working at height and in confined spaces while not being able to provide highly detailed results due to access limitations.
Grain bins at a Cargill site
Cargill is a champion of drone inspections and a major partner to Flyability. They have been using the Elios drones for over 5 years, carefully documenting the benefits of drone inspections. They have seen an impressively high return on investment from drone inspections in grain bins. Calvin Rieb, the Global Remotely Operated Systems Leader at Cargill, has long championed the value that drone inspections offer. This early proof of concept, turned case study, based on grain bin inspections in Colorado & Kansas, demonstrates the clear return-on-investment of drone inspections for managing this type of asset and how Cargill and Flyability worked together closely during the release of the Elios 3.
The Elios 3’s key features that make it ideal for grain bin inspections include:
The Elios 3 is ideal for inspecting confined spaces, from tanks to mines to grain bins
A grain bin inspection with the Elios 3 drone will:
The level of detail achievable with an Elios 3 inspection far surpasses legacy inspection methods. Jacob Shipley is a highly experienced drone pilot for Cargill and shared his experience of using the Elios 3 with Flyability.
“Our drone inspection team is primarily working across the America’s from Argentina to Canada, visiting sites that can have several hundred bins. Some inspections are case-by-case to respond to a potential defect or storm damage, while others are routine checks where we assess dozens of grain bins in one go. The grain bins vary in size, with some having a 120-foot diameter while others are much smaller, measuring just 20-40 feet in diameter. The Elios drones are a game-changer for our inspection workflows, keeping us from having to use scaffolding or rope access at heights that could exceed 100 feet.”
Visual inspections inside grain bins identify damage, such as cracks like these
“The Elios 3 has completely evolved the inspection process. We can get a high level of detail, and in the past, we have been able to use the drone to demonstrate that decommissioned bins were still in working condition and that they had simply been decommissioned due to an estimation of deterioration over time, as well as the opposite! We have decommissioned bins that show severe signs of aging and structural damage. The Elios 3 provides better and more detailed information than the site has ever had before.”
It should be noted that Cargill has a formalized risk-based approach and standards for using drones in dusty environments that can be explosive and all operators are robustly trained in these standards to determine when not to operate in a grain bin or terminate the inspection and remove the drone from the asset. In addition, the fumigation of bins and other gases is monitored and flights are not conducted in these environments.
Thanks to detailed cost tracking, Cargill can easily say they’ve seen a high return on investment from using drones for inspections.
A drone inspection of a grain bin will take just 30 minutes, compared to 3.5 - 4 hours with traditional methods. The work from end-to-end is considered hazardous when people are required to enter the space, but when the drone is used, fewer safety checks are necessary, as no confined space entry occurs. The drone can also provide savings related to scaffolding costs of $10,000 per day.
Shipley also confirmed that this process can be even quicker when grain bins are in certain formations. When inspecting bins adjacent to one another, the team can inspect 3 smaller bins with just one drone battery. In a single day, the team can fly 20-24 larger bins and 30-40 smaller bins. In a week, depending on the size, layout, and availability of the bins, 80-200 bins can be inspected in perfect condition. Considering a large storage site may have upwards of 500 bins, this massively reduces downtime and improves the turnaround time for both inspections and maintenance while also giving site stakeholders the ability to prioritize repairs.
The Elios 3 gets to hard-to-reach spaces and provides all of the necessary information ahead of maintenance work
There can be additional, hidden return on investment applications that Shipley has also identified. This is because the efficiencies gained using the Elios platform can directly impact the overall site efficiency. In one instance, the grain bins being inspected were located below structurally supported walkways between bin decks and were part of a series of bins that showed signs of severe roof damage. The walkways were around 100 to 150 feet off the ground. Due to the looming question of the supporting bins’ roof stability, the walkways and connecting galleys were closed. This limited the site’s operational efficiency, requiring personnel to take a longer route that required two different man lifts instead of simply moving along the walkways to traverse the site. With the Elios 3 and the specialized quick bin inspection technique, the Cargill team was able to inspect all of the supporting bins in a single day, where traditional methods would have required multiple days of work. The quick work from the team allowed the walkways to be reopened and returned the site to full operational efficiency. These unexpected but vital uses of the Elios 3 demonstrate the consistent value of drone inspections on the site.
As early adopters of drone technology for this type of application, Cargill has seen a direct return on their faith in drones. Inspections are now safer, faster, and more cost-efficient than ever before, with specialized pilots moving quickly between sites to complete inspections. Cargill has seen high savings from drone inspections of grain bins, demonstrating a consistent return on investment from their faith in the Elios drones.
In the future, Cargill will continue to use the Elios 3 to complete these inspections and test the potential applications of additional payloads with the drone, such as the ultrasonic thickness probe. With a team that is open to innovation, they set themselves apart from the rest of the industry by testing and adopting technology that makes their work safer, faster, and less costly.
Learn more about the Elios 3 drone on our website!