Jabil Chihuahua opens Drones project

Header: Jabil shows technological capacity by creating smart inventions that will help the customer in having more efficient crops

Jabil opened a drone’s production area inside its facilities in Chihuahua, which are a new project for a customer.  At the event, different current production processes of the plant were shown, in addition of the skills and applied technologies to different ranges of products of these company customers.

The project of drones was born in the second half of 2017.  The business area of the company is constantly seeking to expand its customers’ portfolio to be served from the plant Jabil Chihuahua, and in 2017 an analysis was made by the company and the customer of the skills of engineers, what favored choosing the Chihuahua plant as the ideal to obtain this new project.

In the drones area products are assembled, its functionality is validated, it is tested to see if it fulfills the quality standards required for its sector, it is packaged and finally, sent to customer.

About this project investment, the customer as well as Jabil Chihuahua invested in capital equipment to fulfill the manufacturing, tests and final assembly of the product under the required specifications.

On the other hand, training part and customer’s process learning was an exciting part for Jabil Chihuahua, since its personnel had access to new technologies to implement that knowledge in designing the production line and product assembly.  Several times Jabil personnel have visited its customer and customers have also visiting this company’s facilities.

Last generation drones

According with Armando Molina, cell manager, it took Jabil eight months to design the process of drones manufacturing.  He specified that also the personnel of this production line are small: it has only 30 people working in a special room, separated from the other lines. This by customer specifications.  Finally, he added that, only after one month of production, Jabil Chihuahua already manufactured from 200 to 300 drones.

These new products have the capability of flaying at 62 kph, covering 400 acres in a 45 minutes flight.  It has a dual high resolution camera of 19 megapixels, which allows the user obtaining a high quality map of their crops in real time.  This drone’s technology sends alerts of the crops health anomalies, as determination of plague affectation, irrigation requirements and soil erosion.  In addition, drones capture color and high resolution multispectral images with their sensors that provide smart and useful information to help making decisions and improve operative efficiency.  Mechanisms being used by the drone are inspired and based in the same used in military drones.

On the other hand, these products have a hybrid design of fixed wing.  Its take off, flight and landing are completely automated, keeping the user informed.  The planning, launching and operation are intuitive and activated with one touch.  In addition, quick look maps allow instant field evaluations.

Such images are available instantly on the tablet after the landing for its quick evaluation while it is still inside the field.  The collected data is perfectly integrated with the drone data base.  The information is stored and automatically processed to create its high resolution images of aerial maps.

Advantages for different industries

Drones produced by Jabil Chihuahua have several benefits for a variety of sectors.

Agricultural: monitoring crops without effort

·       Detecting crops’ health anomalies on time

·       Monitoring and tracking entrance effectiveness

·       Improves efficiencies and agriculture performance

Energy: identifies potential threats

·       Monitors pipelines from 400 feet

·       Detects oil leaks or spills

·       Coasts and maritime ice mapping

·       Quicker reaction to energy interruptions

·       Speeds up storm damages assessment

·       Avoids terrestrial obstacles

·       Safely inspects plant lines, energy and gas

Transportation: avoids bottle necks

·       Inspections infrastructure from 400 feet

·       Assess roads without redirecting traffic

·        Monitors railways and bridges for damages

Jabil is a global company of manufacturing solutions that provides services to electronic companies and of technology for a wide range of industries.  With more than 180,000 workers through 102 plants in 28 countries, Jabil helps its customers to transform ideas in products of its wide range of capabilities on strategic design, manufacturing and products management.

Jabil experience reaches the entire world through a wide range of industries and final markets such as automotive, life style and portable technology, defense and aerospace, digital home, Industry and energy, company and infrastructure, taking care of health, mobility, packaging and impression.

At the opening the management team of Jabil presented not only its technological skills, but also the wellness that it has: Jabil is the second largest employer with more than 4,500 employees and 1,050 more projected within a year.  With a career of more than 18 years in the locality, Jabil offers its workers not only competitive wages and benefits, but also added values such as comprehensive family medical service for the worker and their direct families, comprehensive scholarship program, internal growth opportunities through the development of talent, inclusion programs of deaf people and constant presence in the community through its social responsibility committee.

Jabil Chihuahua annually invoices about 570 million dollars and projects a foreign direct investment of 70 million dollars for the upcoming 4 years.

More information

www.jabil.com