Heard a foreman say 'drones are just for pretty pictures' on a site in Phoenix

He was talking about a big grading job and said the drone data was just fluff for the client. But I saw the same crew use that same data to spot a drainage issue before they poured a slab, saving a full day of rework. It made me think we still treat a lot of tech like a toy instead of a real tool. Has anyone else had to prove the practical use of something like drones or scanners to an old school boss?

4 comments

4 Comments

mia_baker1mo ago

Honestly, what happens when that foreman retires and the new guy only knows how to work with the drone data?

lewis.gray1mo ago

Man, that's a real problem waiting to happen. You end up with a crew that can read a screen but can't spot a bad weld or a shaky foundation from ten feet away. The data's useless if nobody on the ground knows what they're actually looking at. We're gonna have a bunch of people who can fly a drone but can't fix what it finds.

wendy_henderson2115d ago

@lewis.gray nailed it. Had a crew like that last year - great with the tech, couldn't tell a rotten beam from a solid one. Now I make them shadow the old-timers for a month before they touch any drone. Fix the basics first, the data comes second.

emma_rodriguez301mo ago

But that new guy can check ten times more ground.