Speaker 0 00:00:00 At liability, we manufacture drones that enable asset owners to keep people out of that confined spaces or hazardous environments, all the while being able to perform inspections more frequently and thus making the operations cleaner and more efficient.
Speaker 1 00:00:18 Hello, everyone. Welcome to the robot industry podcast. I'm Jim Beretta and I'm your host, and I'm excited to have Alex Meldon here. He's the VP of sales for fly ability. USA. Alex promotes the use of robotics solutions to eliminate hazardous work and make industrial sites more efficient. He started working for, for liability, the leading manufacturer of collision tolerant unmanned aerial systems for industrial inspection in 2018, he spent a year and a half doing business development of Switzerland, where he focused on scaling the use of indoor drones in the nuclear industry. When fly ability decided to open a presence in the United States, they gave Alex the opportunity to go and execute it besides managing the operations for the North American office. Alex is a certified drone pilot, and often performs proof of concepts. He's involved in several R and D projects. And in the creation of ASMs standard for UAS inspection prior to working with pliability, Alex was in charge of the U S office of a Swiss negotiation consulting firm. Welcome to the podcast, uh, Alex, uh, we're glad to have you.
Speaker 0 00:01:27 Hi Jen. Thank you so much for having me today. Yeah,
Speaker 1 00:01:30 Yeah. I'm excited about it. I think it's very interesting product and service. How did you get involved in robotics and automation and specifically in industrial inspection?
Speaker 0 00:01:40 So it was really a happy coincidence. Um, like you were saying prior to working for flammability, I was working for a Swiss negotiation consulting firm that was based in Switzerland, but I was running that office in, uh, in New York about that time. My, uh, I had, there were family reasons for which we wanted to go back to Switzerland. I'm half Swiss, half American. So I have family on both sides. And so we moved back to Switzerland with my wife. I had a few different jobs lined up and the one would fly ability. Fortunately was, was part of that lineup. And, uh, I ended up with this wonderful company turns out, um, that was my passion, which I didn't know at the time. And, you know, what's even more interesting than why I got into is why I stayed, which is, um, you know, the industry itself is just fascinating, exciting, quickly evolving and viability is just a wonderful company.
Speaker 1 00:02:24 Oh, that's great to hear. And I think family's important and families first and all of our decisions as well. So what is some of the business model behind flammability? Like how does it work? Who owns the drones?
Speaker 0 00:02:36 That's a, it's a very interesting question that comes at a very interesting time. Um, typically what we did was sell the drone outright to the end user or to a service provider that was then going to go provide services to the asset owner. But just a week ago, we came out with a new model that we're going to start deploying across the world, starting basically now where instead of buying the drone outright, we're going to deploy it to them on a subscription model where against a monthly fee, they will be able to use the drone as they please we'll maintain ownership of it. But we'll also maintain the responsibility to service the drone, maintain it, replace it if, uh, if anything happens to it, even based on user error and then upgrade the technology as new iterations of this drone become available.
Speaker 2 00:03:19 And that's that robots as a service model, right? And it makes a lot of sense. Obviously, some clients will need to own it and some clients will need to, uh, Lisa.
Speaker 0 00:03:28 Exactly. We're really excited to bring it out because we think that, you know, buying the drone outright can be a challenge for some companies. It's a big capital expenditure that needs to happen. That that needs to happen at a, at a time. That's not necessarily always great for them, especially these days with COVID. So by giving them the ability to not have to buy it upfront, but being able to, um, pay it on a monthly basis all the while, not having to worry about maintenance and all or something, a few of their different headaches, they're not making this big investment that could be lost at any second, if there were to be some sort of sort of accident. Um, and we're also giving them the peace of mind that this drone is going to be replaced. It's going to be serviced. Should anything happen to it? Of course, we're keeping the standard model of selling to it, selling it straight out as well, because that's what some people want. But with this new model, we're hoping that we're going to allow asset owners to scale the use of this technology and thus prevent even more people from having to work in confined spaces and overall make the operations more efficient and cleaner
Speaker 2 00:04:23 Prep for this podcast. I did some research on the company and your promises about keeping people safe. And can you expand on that?
Speaker 0 00:04:32 Absolutely. So safety is really at the core of everything we do at viability. In fact, our mission is to replace humans with robots for any work that happens in dangerous or hazardous environments. The beginning of liability itself happened around the, uh, the Hiroshima, uh, nuclear power plant, um, disaster where, uh, our co-founders were part of a team trying to find a solution to get into that nuclear power plant without having to walk in there because obviously the radiation doses were off the trope without being able to send a ground robot in because of all the rubble, the only solution became obvious. And that was to fly in that at the time, there were no drones that were able to fly in a confined space and withstand collisions. So that's really where the whole inception of viability came from. Uh, since then everything we do is focused around keeping people safe, keeping them out of these hazardous environments, confined spaces and, uh, hazardous work environments in general.
Speaker 2 00:05:23 And it's a great example of a robot doing the dirty, dangerous, and really impossible work, right?
Speaker 0 00:05:29 Absolutely. The, uh, a lot of the, the jobs these robots done and for having done a few of these flights on my own, it's some of these areas are just scary. I would not want to go into these confined spaces where there's only one means of exit. And yet it's a very complex system with a lot of different moving parts. Um, being able to send a robot in there instead of a person is, is a huge value because you're not putting a person at risk. And if you look at the, uh, outer chart of, um, uh, the hierarchy of hazard where basically, you know, personal protective equipment and administrative controls, which are the ways we can mitigate dangerous today are fairly low on that chart. Whereas eliminating the risk is obviously the best way to control a hazard. And by using the drone, you're eliminating the risk, what we're seeing a lot of these days, which I absolutely love seeing is on LinkedIn. We see these inspectors posting pictures of themselves, just sitting on a lawn chair outside of an asset instead of having to crawl through it. So, you know, be at a tank, for example, a storage tank, for example, they're just saying all lawn chair with their remote control in their hands, instead of having to crawl into that space and climb up scaffolding and all that.
Speaker 2 00:06:31 No, that's very exciting what sectors of the economy are busiest for you? And do you have some applications that you can tell our audience about?
Speaker 0 00:06:38 Absolutely. So, you know, the, the more dangerous the application, uh, the, the, the busiest we are really, um, if you look at nuclear power plants, for example, most of them are finishing their outage season right about now. And as of this year, I think we had somewhere between 60 and 70% of all power plants in North America that were using our technology to avoid dose exposure to personnel, but also to cut the cost of the inspection and the time they needed to be down to perform these inspections. So nuclear is one of our biggest industries. Um, we, uh, we, we were very fond of the nuclear applications because of the implications in terms of safety, for example, a nuclear power plant on a, on an average outage and inspection can save three Rams of exposure to that personnel, which is about three times the dose you would need to be exposed to over the course of a year to develop a form of cancer.
Speaker 0 00:07:25 The financial savings also can also be huge. So in a single inspection, depending on the use case, they can save about $750,000 with a single deployment of our drone. And we work in a lot of different industries that have these types of dangers as well. So energy in general, you know, be a, uh, power generation or oil and gas applications. We have a lot of different things we can do there. Uh, we do a lot of, or more and more work in public infrastructure with PSU inspections, actually becoming a, a big part of the work we do in public infrastructure. It's difficult to get in there. It's very dangerous to be in there. And all the other solutions are either extremely expensive or difficult to deploy. So using our drone comes as a great solution for a sewer inspection, but we also do a lot of work in mining. For example, in chemicals, we even have some public safety search and rescue applications. So, you know, we're basically in a lot of different industries and a lot of diff different ways where we have our added value is when it's dangerous to send somebody in.
Speaker 2 00:08:21 Absolutely. And I've noticed on your website that you have a sphere, drone design, why is that? And how does it work?
Speaker 0 00:08:29 So the fear, the sphere is really the most noteworthy part of one of the key features of this drone, uh, which is the ability to withstand a collision. Um, it's not something that many drones can do if really any at all. And the, the, so the sphere is, is the most notable part of that. What the sphere does is protect all the internal components of propellers from having any type of issues in case of a collision, there are other features as well that ensure that for example, the motors on the drones can switch or have been designed specifically for this device and can switch speed and direction of rotation within a split. Second, to keep the drone airborne in case of a collision, the payload can also attract itself all the way into the cage in case of a frontal collision, keeping all the cameras and sensors safe.
Speaker 0 00:09:10 And there's, there's a whole other variety of features on there that make it not only a tool that is safe to find those environments in that can withstand collisions, but also intuitive to fly. So we have features on that, um, that, that make it not an aircraft for pilots, as much as, uh, an inspection tour for inspectors. For example, we have very powerful lighting that can be used in a variety of ways to either make it easier to fly through dusty environments or to, to detect faults, uh, in welds, for example, while we can with casting a kind of longitudinal light across the surface, which would cast shadows if the cracks pits bumps, and also a whole host of sensors around the drone that help it to remain stable, or even an absence of GPS, which is a big component of making an accessible tool for inspectors, rather than just an aircraft for experienced pilots.
Speaker 2 00:09:58 And you must have a feature set of sensors around the drone. So obviously a cameras, but you'd have all kinds of other sensors as well.
Speaker 0 00:10:06 Correct. So the, the drone, um, for the inspection portion of it carries a 4k RGB camera, uh, that has HD downstream to the ground control system. We also have a, an infrared FLIR leptin, three camera on that that can show clear as day. There are only faults in installation, for example, it was steam leaks and things like that. And then we have a variety of other sensors that are measuring distances, essentially both to keep the drone stable, and also to inform it as to where it's positioned within an asset in flight,
Speaker 2 00:10:35 How much training do you need to fly a drone?
Speaker 0 00:10:38 So that's an interesting question. It depends on a lot of different factors. Um, somebody who's never touched enjoys taking their life are going to need to, are going to take a bit of time to get used to operating it. Now, uh, we, we, we love having, you know, X video game firing the drone because they have that muscle memory in their thumbs to control it. And, and just pilots in general, again, this run was designed, uh, with intuitivity, uh, being a major component of it. So what we did is basically replicate what the experience you would have for an off the shelf, commercial drone, and integrated that into this device. It's a typically for the training portion of it, we have, uh, an introductory training that's included with the purchase of the drone. And we typically recommend about eight hours of flight time afterwards doing a variety of exercises and just flying around to gain full proficiency with the drone.
Speaker 0 00:11:25 Now, there was some assets where it's really easy to fly such as a tank, for example, you're not, there's no obstacles in there. Um, worst case scenario, the drone is on the ground and really nothing else happens. And then there were much more difficult assets to fly, find like Suez, uh, where if anything happens, you're going to be submerged into water and you're most likely going to lose your drone completely. So the, you know, depending on where you're trying to fly, it's going to take more or less training because it's so intuitive to use. However, uh, practicing on your own is generally all it takes to become proficient enough to fly it through basically anywhere.
Speaker 1 00:11:57 But, well, that's interesting to know. So what is the ROI or the payback model, uh, that you're looking at
Speaker 0 00:12:04 Now? That's a big question because the whole idea behind our products is the value it creates. There's the safety aspect of it, which is by far our favorite, but unfortunately you can't really put a price tag on safety. It's either safer or it's not now. So if we're looking at the financials of it alone, it's, it's interesting. The ROI can be extremely quick. So we were talking about nuclear power plants earlier, for example, and some cases, they use it as a disposable drone. They'll use it once. It's going to get too contaminated to be reused, and they'll just dispose of it. The ROI can be that great. Um, if you look at a, uh, on the, in the maritime industry, for example, for an oil tanker, they, uh, they have this huge headache where if they think there's an issue with anything on the ship, they're going to have to dry dock to perform an inspection using our drone that can remain at sea to inspect at least some parts of it and determine whether or not they need to dry dock by avoiding having to dry dock.
Speaker 0 00:12:52 They can keep the operations going, determine if a maintenance needs to be done based on condition rather than just schedule maintenance. And so what we saw a lot in spring, for example, in the oil prices were fluctuating like crazy is that our clients were able to move product much faster, even if they had a doubt that something was going on because they were able to inspect it right there on the spot, rather than having to dry dog. So in the maritime industry, sometimes we see savings up to 2 million in just a couple of flights because they didn't have to dry dock instead. And then for a very, um, you know, commonplace application for technology, uh, which is, um, an in the power generation, coal fire boiler inspection. So for the example of a 500 megawatt coal fire boiler inspection, that traditional inspection method method takes about 11 days, you're going to need three to four days to call the asset down to a temperature at which people can enter you, then going to send a crew in to set up the scaffolding, which is going to take about two days, you're going to need about two or three days to perform the form inspection.
Speaker 0 00:13:46 And then another two days to take down the scaffolding using our drone. You can shave that time down to three days because you're still going to need a day or two of downtime to bring it down to a temperature with the drone can operate. And after that, you'll need about half a day to a full day to perform the inspection. Of course, that has a huge impact on cost. Whereas performing the inspection that's 500 megawatt copilot boiler in the traditional way is going to cost you anywhere upwards of $500,000 between the cost of downtime and scaffolding. It will cost you somewhere underneath a hundred thousand dollars, not including the price of the drone, obviously, because you're still going to have a little bit of downtime, but that's really the only cost you're going to be facing. So even on a pretty basic application for a technology, which is that of a coal-fired boiler, the ROI is basically immediate.
Speaker 0 00:14:30 And then there's some where the value is a little lesser. So if you look at grain bins, for example, which are just really big empty storage tanks, um, green beans can be difficult and dangerous to inspect because they are because the grain can cake and make it look like there's a surface to walk on when really there's not. And there are dirt and grain bins, a yearly because of that false sense of I've got ground under my feet, a drone is not to save a tremendous amount, even inspecting an autonomy. You're going to look at about $9,000 per grade, but inspected of saving where it becomes interesting is when you scale the amount of green beans, they have, you know, most grain bin owners have at least a hundred to 200 of them across the country. You're looking at a much more interesting return on investment because you can scale that application, do it much quicker, much safer, and again, cheaper.
Speaker 3 00:15:12 And how long does it take to inspect a green bin? Um,
Speaker 0 00:15:15 Um, I, so I did one in Colorado a few months ago, I think, to do the whole grain bin. And it's significant in size. If you go look on our website, you can see a picture of it. On one of the case studies, we did that full grain ban, and it took about an hour and a half to two hours. I think
Speaker 3 00:15:33 You probably do that with two drones or just multiple battery sets.
Speaker 0 00:15:36 Yeah. Multiple batteries. That's my, I have my favorite setup where I have a nine and nine batteries with me and four of them charging all the time. So I can just swap them in and out, uh, as the mission goes along. But yeah, one drone is sufficient and really, you only need one person to operate it to. In this case, I was with somebody else who was doing external work at the same time. And I was doing the work internally on my own. And for me, it was the first time flying in a green bin. But that's how accessible this technology is. Once you know how to use it, there's really anywhere. That's indoors is a good place to fly it.
Speaker 3 00:16:07 Well, that's very exciting. And, uh, how can people get a hold of you?
Speaker 0 00:16:12 So, uh, they can find me on LinkedIn. My name is Alex Meldon. Um, they can also reach us by our website. We have a contact form on there, really any social media platform.
Speaker 3 00:16:23 That's great. And Meldrum is M E L D E M. Correct? Our sponsor for this episode is Earhart automation systems, Earhart builds and commissions turnkey solutions for their worldwide clients. With over 80 years of precision manufacturing, they understand the complex world of robotics, automated manufacturing, and project management, delivering world-class custom automation on time and on budget contact one of their sales engineers to see what Earhart can build for
[email protected] and that's E H R H a R D T automation.com. I'd like to thank and acknowledge our partner. A three, the association for advancing automation. Eight three is the umbrella association for the RIA, the AIA M C M a N 83, Mexico. And these four associations combined represent almost 1300 automation manufacturers, component suppliers, systems integrators, and users, research groups, and consulting firms throughout the world that are driving automation forward. I'd like to thank our partner painted robot painted robot builds and integrates digital solutions.
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[email protected]. And you'd like to get in touch with us at the robot industry podcast. Our email address is the robot industry podcast at Gmail, or you can find me Jim Beretta on LinkedIn. We'll see you next time. Thanks for listening and be safe out there. Today's podcast was produced by customer attraction, industrial marketing, and I'd like to thank my nephew, Chris gray for the music, Chris Colvin for audio production, my partner, Janet at our sponsors, a three painted robot and Earhart automation.
