Kespry, a drone-based aerial intelligence solution provider, says Midsouth Aggregates is now using the Kespry platform for inventory management and mine planning.
With granite and limestone reserves located throughout Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee, Midsouth Aggregates produces a variety of aggregate products, as well as concrete and asphalt sand, general construction sand and gravel.
“Kespry’s drones and software really sped up inventory management,” says Jerry Adkins, senior production manager, Midsouth Aggregates. “Kespry gave us a consistent measuring tool, whereas in the past we’d use other vendors who would do LiDAR and ground surveys. They would come on site, do the flights and it would usually take a couple of weeks to get the data. Then we’d have a different vendor come in later in the year using a different method for measuring.
“With Kespry, we brought it all in-house, and inventory management became something we could do monthly with more consistency and control. Now, we get real-time status of our sales yards and pits. We can calculate forecasted blast tonnages in Kespry and verify this with a flight of the muck pile once the shot is on the ground. This gives us an accurate read on our daily production.”
Midsouth Aggregates also uses Kespry for comprehensive short-term and long-term mine planning, including granular analysis of pits across its operations.
“Kespry gives us the ability to look at our pits in 2D and 3D,” says Adkins. “The volumetric tools allow us to do short-term and long-term mine planning. As a mining engineer, I found that very useful. Kespry is very user-friendly, so we’ve been able to train our plant managers to do the same type of planning. In the past, we’d have a mine planner doing that for us. So, that’s improved the overall outlook of how they manage their pits.”
Kespry Cloud, which enables companies to access inventory management and mine planning data 24×7 on any device, has also played a role in creating internal visibility and transparency at Midsouth Aggregates.
“The Kespry Cloud has been awesome,” says Adkins. “I can look at all of our locations in one place and get fast access to all the data. It’s a really great communication tool as well. We use it in meetings with upstream management, contractors and our hourly employees to show them mine plans and real-time photos.”
