Shipping giant Maersk deploys drones for warehouse inventories

Global shipping, ground transport, and logistics giant Maersk is tackling the problem of getting accurate, continually updated data from its warehouse inventories by swapping one of the weak links in that process – the easily distracted attention of humans – with the laser-focused, unperturbable eyes of automated drones.

Maersk has adopted autonomous drones to take stock of inventories in four of the hundreds of warehouses in which it stores supplies being hauled by its ships and trucks around the globe. That small number of facilities located in North America, however, is just the beginning of a wider rollout of UAVs planned for 2023 as the company seeks to improve the constant process of accounting for the goods it transports every day.

Though Maersk itself is too diplomatic to say so as such, a big reason it’s turning to drones and onboard sensors for inventories is because tech tends to work better than human auditors undertaking the repetitive…