In this lesson we will discuss your work day timeline.

Why is it important?

If you as service company, are planning to work with maximum efficiency, you should know exactly where the time was lost. Time management is the key factor for overall efficiency improvement and you should take into account even small things, like pit-stop times, because in a time frame of one day or one week, lost time accumulates into many hours.

We will see is it a good idea to work alone without any assistant, because some of you might want to reduce expenses on this account. But first, let me remind you about the overall performance of different drone models. 

As we discussed in the generic chapter, the advertised performance values have be reduced by a quarter to get average productivity values.

For example, DJI T30 with advertised productivity value of 16 hectares per hour, in non-ideal conditions is capable of spraying around 12 hectares per hour.

This can be achieved only if the pilot has attended professional pilot training courses.

Also, as we discussed, multiplying 12 hectares by 8 hours is not a correct method for daily productivity calculation. So how many hours per day are we actually spraying, driving, cleaning and so on? Let's take a look a the work day time line.

Please pay careful attention to this part of the course, as this is where you might win, or loose few thousand euros per month.

In this section we will discuss service company time management and work efficiency improvement.

 In the first scenario we will discuss an 8 hour work day for one large field, but of course, you might work more than 8 hours per day.

We do expect you as a service company to spend at least 2 hours travelling to and from the work location.

Your set-up time is expected to be around 12 minutes, liquid product mixing time around 30 minutes, total spraying time around 5 hours, including pit-stop times. Cleaning of equipment after the job might take 15 minutes and another 15 minutes for packing all equipment.

Here it is important to mention, that field contour mapping time is not included in this time line. But, if you didn't have any opportunity to map the contours in advance, you might spend another 45 minutes or an hour for this task for one large field of 50 hectares. You might save some time if you have an electric bike or a mapping drone with you.

As you can see on graphical presentation on the right side, spraying time accounts only for 58% of the total time. This means you will be spraying during 5 out of 8 hours, which equals to 50 to 75 hectares per day, depending on your application rates and weather conditions.

Well, here you go, if you are adequately trained, well prepared and not waisting any time, you will get such daily results in case of one large field.

Yes, this is very generic time line, because you might have to travel to and from work more than 2 hours, you might need some extra time for mapping the field contours, basically many factors are very specific.

Now, let's have a look at the timeline from a different perspective.

On these graphics you will find a presentation of your daily work time line.

Please study it carefully. Have you noticed that some tasks are ovelapping? Yes, that is because in a team of 2 persons some tasks may be done in parallel.

When one team member is mixing products, other one can do the field contour mapping, or when the job is finished, one person is cleaning the drone and other is doing the packing.

We also recommend the assistant to be the car driver as the pilot will have to work all day long.

Next, let's have a look at an example of properly organized pitstop, which should ideally be performed under 1 minute.

Here is an example of a well organized pitstop.

During the pit-stop you should change the batteries and refill the tank with liquid or seeds.

The pilot should not forget to check the propeller blades and drone structure for any damage. Also, the pilot should listen for any abnormal sounds coming from the drone when it approaches and takes-off. 

So, you might ask me, how can we reach productivity of 100 hectares per day? Let's discuss this question in the following section.