GERMANY – The prestigious award of the German Employers’ Liability Insurance Association for Wood and Metal (BGHM) was awarded to the Sonae Arauco plant in Nettgau for an innovative and unique occupational safety measure based on drone technology.

The modern and innovative measuring method using a drone replaces the employees needed to measure the stored wood on the lumberyard for inventory. Before, the inventory would require three employees and would take up to five hours. In addition, strict safety regulations are required when entering the wood yard.

Now the drone flight is completed in 30 minutes. The final calculation takes three hours. Initiator and inventor of the project “drone” is Bernd Lippe, production manager wood at Sonae Arauco’s Nettgau plant: “I am extremely satisfied with the result which was achieved by the drone inventory. This allows us to make our processes safer, more accurate, faster and more reproducible, and this type of inventory could also be used in other plants,” says Lippe. “The drone driver’s license was the simplest challenge – much more labor-intensive was the development of the measurement software,” summarizes Lippe.