Nothing can take the place of humans in the warehouse, right? That’s true, but there is another disruptive technology rising above the horizon, and we need to pay attention. Many industries are already taking notice about the potential use of drones as another tool for managing inventory.

An article from Electronics 360, reports that “unmanned aerial vehicles” (UAVs) have not yet achieved “mass commercialization appeal in inventory management,” but these UAVs, if equipped with radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags, could eventually bring another level of efficiency to the inventory management process.

“We could potentially see more demand for such uses in the future especially from very large corporations that have to deal, organize and operate very large warehouses and distribution centers,” says Dinesh Kithany, smart home and appliances analyst at IHS Markit, a market research firm.

Could the use of RFID drones compete with the human side of inventory management?

Matt Yearling, CEO of PINC Solutions, which makes RFID drones, says that drones could free up employees from doing the more repetitive aspects of inventory management, giving them the time to perform more important jobs. And drones won’t get bored or tired, that is, until their batteries wear down, requiring the drones to return to a charging station frequently during operation. But that’s a problem RFID drone makers are working on solving. 

Drones also need to be fully automated. Yearling says a drone needs to “understand where it is, know what it is doing and be able to do it by itself.  Let the robots do the mundane tasks and let the humans be engaged in operating and doing something meaningful with the data they are getting back from the drones.”

RFID drones are tools. Humans are the thinkers needed to use the tools efficiently.