Crane equipment is often the highest cost equipment on a worksite. The insurance and liability costs for cranes on a worksite can be even higher. Crane insurance includes general liability, damage to the equipment, riggers liability, and automotive liability insurance to cover damage any time the crane is moved in or out of the worksite. For companies that rent crane equipment rather than own, insurance must cover liability for any damage that occurs to the crane on the jobsite – and loss of rental coverage in case the crane breaks and you can’t use it. These costs are a necessary part of doing business on a construction site: but automated drone inspections can minimize your insurance needs and reduce claims and their associated costs.
Minimize Crane Movement to Minimize Liability
Cranes pose the most danger to the operator and the surroundings when they are being transported: but conventional methods of mandated crane inspections require a crane to boom down and be moved off site. Inspectors then must travel to the crane to issue inspection reports. The entire process is time-consuming and expensive: and requires significant liability insurance to cover the crane’s movement.
The vHive automated drone inspection platform can reduce the time and cost of performing a crane inspection to minutes and eliminate the need to move a crane off-site. (See the Beginners Guide to Automated Drone Inspections.) Automated drone inspections reduce the liability costs – and the real risk – associated with crane inspections.
From Reactive to Predictive Maintenance
Automated drone inspections also offer the opportunity for improved maintenance workflows through more frequent routine inspections and better digital insights. Conventional mandated inspections are intended to prevent a catastrophic incident, and to ensure that cranes comply with safety codes. While these crane inspections help prevent accidents, conventional inspection reports don’t necessarily help crane owners optimize their maintenance program to limit downtime or insurance claims for breakage.
When an automated drone inspection is performed, detailed pictures of the crane taken from every angle are uploaded to the vHive platform and processed into images that allow users to move around the asset in 3D space, zooming in on areas of interest and tagging and annotating as they go. This information is the basis of the inspection report, which can be generated from the safety of the inspector’s office. The benefits of more frequent routine inspections and digital data compound over time. Companies can reduce their risk of equipment downtime by collecting and retaining the visual inspection data of crane assets and their components; and measuring change by comparing them.
More frequent inspections and digital insights can alert crane owners and end users of potential hazards and give maintenance departments meaningful data to plan predictive and preventative maintenance on equipment.
Lower Risk, and Lower Cost
Automated drone inspections limit the risk associated with moving a crane off and on a worksite: and they limit the insurance and liability coverage that accompanies that risk. In addition, the digital data that results from automated drone inspections can make cranes safer to operate and lower the cost of insurance and lost time for customers.
Businesses need to reduce liability costs without cutting corners or compromising safety. vHive’s automated drone inspection platform provides the opportunity to maintain business integrity, improve worker safety and maintenance practices, and limit insurance costs.