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Management Side
Week of 12 January 15: You need an RPA Policy Now

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By now you know that RPA (Remotely Piloted Aircraft) is the official name for drones. I first spoke of these in a column titled "Insecurity at 15 feet" which was published the week of 1 Oct 2012, over two years ago. I have spoken about them several times since.

This past Christmas, RPA sales soared--pun intended. Amazon is selling 10,000 RPAs per month.

All of this just may be of idle interest to you so far, but Google "Smithfield Drones." This is what pops up:

Report: Drone captures footage of waste at Smithfield Foods.

Spy Drones Expose Smithfield Foods Factory Farms.

and on and on and on...

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Again, I have been warning you about this for over two years.

So, you can say, our policy is not to allow RPAs on our site and we will treat all RPAs as trespassers. That may work, but for how many feet above your property can you claim you own the airspace? RPAs are currently allowed to fly up to 400 feet high and can take high resolution video from that height. They can also set off to the side, never crossing your property line, and shoot video and photos from such a position. In the UK, flying over someone's land at low altitude is considered a nuisance, not trespassing. In other jurisdictions, it seems that the trespass of airspace is imprecisely limited to the height of skyscrapers.

Then there is the matter of high altitude inspections you need to do as routine maintenance. In the past, you have had to have scaffolding erected at the cost of $50,000, and employ a crew of maintenance technicians to do the job. Now, a contractor comes along and says they can do the same work, same quality and leave you a video of the work for your records for $5,000 if you will let them use an RPA. Do you still not want to let RPAs on your site?

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RPAs are not in the future any longer. I plan on owning a serious one before the end of the month myself. By serious, I mean one that can carry a payload of one or two cameras. Don't worry, I will not be bringing it to your mill--yet. The law and the uses are too undefined for me to hazard my reputation and business on such an idea. However, I hope to be able to demonstrate some real value within a few months.

In the meantime, your enemies and your innovative contractors are going to be presenting you with issues you can no longer afford to ignore. It is time for you to do something about this.

We have an extremely simple one question quiz for you this week. You may take it here.

For safety this week, I predict within a year you will be using an RPA as part of your safety program in your mill. It may be to examine a hazard at a high elevation or to enter a space that might not be safe for personnel, but you will be using one or more.

Be safe and we will talk next week.

You can own your Nip Impressions Library by ordering "Raising EBITDA ... the lessons of Nip Impressions."


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