Assignment TakenCreate and MIS reporting format for efficient reporting

Case UnderstandingAirway Delivery has conducted BVLOS trials with drones and beta testing deliveries have been accomplished so far. Currently, it needs to gain trust of customers and needs to bring automation to the process, just the way Ola and Uber have brought automation in order booking and order fulfilment process. An end-to-end drone operations & management platform will require real-time drone tracking capabilities, that will show the live status of drones in-flight and in reserve. For analysis and data insights, Airway Delivery needs MIS Reporting tools to gain visibility into the following:  How many drones are in-transit and which location are they in?  How many orders have been picked-up and how many have been delivered, and how many have been delayed?  What environmental conditions are being faced by the drones?  What are the ordering patterns of the customers and the rating history of each – for customer insights?  How are the payments happening and is the budgeting being followed? The company also needs to work on exception scenarios associated with drone delivery.  What if the recipient is not available at the drop location, what should the drone do then?  What if the package dropping functionality fails at drop location? How long should the drone wait?  What if the package releasing clamp malfunctions and accidently drops the next package too at a previous location? At the same time, the drones will have to comply with the regulations set forward by Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) and will have to comply with the restrictions around speed, acceleration and altitude of the drones. Moreover, since India is still experimenting with BVLOS, Airway Delivery may need to wait a little longer than planned for getting licenses from DGCA.

BCS Solution SummaryTeam Edison proposes that the short-range and long-range drones be equipped with IoT sensors to detect GPS coordinates, altitude, speed, acceleration, temperature, wind speed, roll, yaw, pitch, RPM of rotor and distance from the delivery location. This system will enable live tracking of each drone and will also alert the operators in case a drone malfunctions, or any of the DGCA guidelines have been violated. This will help in keeping transparency of operations and will help in surfacing genuine data for investigation during any litigation filed by DGCA or any other authority against Airway Delivery. The live tracking parameters from drone will be populated in the “Drone Live Status” MIS Tool where the backend operator will have granular visibility on the performance, location and activity of each drone in BVLOS operation. Whenever any drone malfunctions or any delivery is unfulfilled, an alert will be triggered automatically in the system for the operator to respond to. Each booking that the company gets will be populated in the “Deliveries” MIS Tool, which will show the drone ID mapped against that order, and how soon has the drone responded to the query. The MIS tool will also show how far the drone is from its pickup location and subsequently from the delivery location, using GPS coordinates. Once the order has been delivered successfully and the recipient has confirmed the same, it will be updated on the MIS sheet and will be highlighted as a closed order. Each order will also add customer’s details in “Customer Analysis” MIS Tool and will update the total number of orders against that Customer ID, the average size and weight of packages ordered by her in the past. Once the ratings are received, the Average Ratings column will also be updated. This will help marketing department to understand which customers can be targeted using special offers. It will also give an insight to the HR department on which drone operators have led to dissatisfactory ratings from customers. Once payments are done by the customer, the “Reporting” sheet will be updated with the additional revenue received. The Reporting MIS sheet will give real time visibility into how the company is doing in revenues vis-à-vis its expenses. The “Dashboard” MIS sheet is updated in real-time with visualizations of the historical performance, that help in the data analysts to derive critical business insights for management decisions.

Solution

Let’s look at the IT infrastructure from three lenses – Drone Delivery Process, Regulatory infrastructure requirements and MIS Reporting Tools.

Drone Delivery Process – Technical Understanding

• Customer books order for delivery using an Airway Delivery mobile app, which requires entering the pickup location and drop location, and the pickup time, and then paying using UPI
• The order management system checks which URL has the customer come from, by checking the Urchin tracking Module (UTM)
• This gives insight on whether the customer has come from a social media campaign or organically through website/app – updated on “Marketing” MIS Sheet
• The recipients of the packages get a notification, where they need to confirm if they will be available for receiving the packages – if yes, then they get a QR code
• Whatever orders Airway Delivery receives over a 30-minute period, they will be segregated as per geographical zones
• Next, the drop locations of those orders will be arranged in a sequence decided by the Route Optimization Engine, based on Traveling Salesman Algorithm
• Subsequently, the pickup locations will be arranged in a sequence that is reverse of the drop location sequence, so that the drone collects up the items in a stack, not in a queue
• The drone takes flight and during transit, all the parameters (speed, altitude, location, etc.) are tracked live in the “Drone Live Status” MIS Tool – it flies using cameras for visual analysis and obstacle avoidance algorithms on a specified route
• Any deviation from the SLAs trigger an alert and the backend operator can take manual control of the drone to bring it on the desired course
• Drone reaches the first recipient and descends on the window/doorstep
• The receiver of the package scans the QR code from his mobile phone on the QR scanner mounted on the drone
• The bottom-most package in the queue – the one associated with the QR code – is released and the drone leaves
• “Delivery” MIS Sheet is updated in real-time
• Receiver and Customer give feedback, which is updated on “Customer Analysis” MIS Sheet, along with time taken to reach the drop location and any issues faced on the way

 

Exception handling

• If the drone malfunctions on the way, then two spare drones will be dispatched immediately – one for taking the packages to destinations, and the other to bring the damaged drone back
• If a recipient is unavailable at the address even after confirming his/her availability on the app, then his/her package will be dropped at the next drop location and the recipient will be responsible for collecting his/her box from that other drop location – this will be made clear in the Terms and Conditions
• If the drone’s package releasing functionality malfunctions and more packages are accidently dropped, this will trigger an alert and the operator/support staff will be deployed to ship the items to doorstep of the correct recipients
• If the drone fails to release a package to a recipient, similar alert mechanism will be triggered and the same process as point# 3 will be executed

 

Regulatory Technology Infrastructure Deployment

1. Speed limits: The regulatory draft has set up a maximum speed limit for drones at 15 metres/second
2. Altitude: The drones are only allowed to fly at a maximum height of 15 meters and within the range of 100 meters from the remote pilot
3. Geofencing: Drones can fly only up to an altitude of 121.92 metres and cannot enter restricted airspace.
4. Other device installations:
   • GNSS for horizontal and vertical position fixing
   • Autonomous Flight Termination System or Return Home (RH) option
   • Flashing anti-collision strobe lights
   • RFID and GSM SIM Card/ NPNT compliant for APP based real time tracking
   • Fire resistant identification plate inscribed with UIN
   • Flight controller with flight data logging capability
   • Barometric equipment with capability for remote sub-scale setting
   • Detect and Avoid capability
   • SSR transponder (Mode ‘C’ or ‘S’) or ADS-B OUT equipment

 

MIS Reporting

1. Deliveries Planned vs Fulfilled: The number of bookings fulfilled on a particular day will be compared against the total bookings received, to give insights into how well the operators are working and if drone capacity must be increased
2. Expected Delivery Time vs Actual Time Taken: This will provide insights into how well Airway Delivery is meeting its commitments of on-time delivery and if customers are getting the best ROIs
3. Time to Service vs Time between Orders: This MIS shall provide insights into how fast we are servicing customers and how frequently they are ordering – it gives insights into whether the customers who face delays are showing decline in orders or not, and thus Marketing team can target them with special offers
4. Average Time taken to service pin-codes: The data can show which areas are readily serviceable and which areas lead to highest turnaround times – so that the Finance department can customize the pricing options for each pin-code based on how much energy is spent on drones for servicing customers there  
5. Average rating vs Total orders: The customer-related data shows which customers are happy with our service, and if they are placing more orders than those who are dissatisfied with the drone services
6. Drone Live Status: Each health parameter of drone, especially its speed and altitude, will be monitored closely on per-second basis in a live tracking MIS sheet for regulatory compliance purposes 

 

Management principles: 

We are targeting the seven wastes of operations management, viz. overproduction, inventory, motion, defects, over-processing, waiting, and transport 

• Drone traceability and route optimization for last-mile delivery
• Automation and Centralization of reporting 
• Transparency in scalar chain 
• Omni-channel marketing strategy 
• “Unity of command” and “unified direction” through unified reporting
• Sustainability and eco-friendliness by reducing fuel spending on delivery vehicles 

ConclusionDrone-based BVLOS delivery services are still in nascent stage in India and are awaiting regulatory approvals from DGCA. Airway Delivery is entering the market at the right time as the barriers to entry are low and the Ministry of Aviation is encouraging startups to enter into consortia of Dunzo and Swiggy. The company needs to deploy IoT-enabled drones that can be tracked live on a MIS dashboard. All IT regulatory compliances related to speed, permissible altitude, size, payload weight, geofencing, etc. will have to be followed using autonomous IoT systems. A full-fledged mobile app (UX mockups attached) will be used to collect orders and for live monitoring – thereby increasing traceability and transparency. Comprehensively developed MIS sheets will be instrumental in keeping track of all financial parameters, regulatory aspects, performance metrics, customer sentiments and performance of the backend drone operators – and this will unify the operations for all departments, like finance, supply chain, marketing, HR, IT and legal.