Saturday, August 1, 2020

Can Drones and Self-driving cars be a part of Supplychain ?

Hello Everyone, this is Dharunanand R pursuing my MBA second year from Amrita school of Business. In this week blog let's see about "Can Drones and Self-driving cars be a part of Supplychain ?"




The advancement of drones and self driving vehicle technologies is growing at a faster pace, compared to previous year due to coronavirus pandemic. The pandemic has enabled the companies to invest more in R&D as "no touch" delivery option is highly desired. 

The companies are planning to include an option of "low touch or no touch" for customers while placing their order and don't forget this type of delivery will be extravagant as still the technology is in nascent phase and over hyped by certain companies because they have lot of practical difficulties.

With many discussion in the room, it boils down to some important questions. What is the ideal setting of the technology and for which products, Is it Urban or Suburban?

There are both positives and negatives with the above mentioned questions, considering the Urban environment the traffic density is the main reason which cause delays in delivery and also the fuel costs incurred during the delivery but the positive side is that you can deliver the orders at door step, where as the 10th floor  door delivery is not possible with drones and self-driving cars until now, provided we have a provision with the building and too possible only with drones.If self driving car have employed then it should have a separate robot to deliver the package to the required address and imagine the investment that company need to have in R&D to enable such feature. 


The weather also plays an important role during drone deliveries, it should be in favor of them for completing a successful delivery In rural areas, we can delivery easily with drones as there is less density but the need of distribution center should be close to target customers to achieve it.

Coming to the conclusion, the companies are over hyping the technologies and  only prototypes have  been built for patent purposes, once the disruption occur in the costs involved, we can expect the drones coming to our homes😀

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