MICRODRONES

From flying solo to a global framework

SysAid reduced incidents, improved operations, and saved time for the global commercial drone company.

About Microdrones

Microdrones grew out of a collaboration between the inventor of the world’s first commercial quadcopter in Germany and a determined custom drone service provider in North America. The result is a multinational organization that sells fully integrated drone systems for geomatics applications and provides complete aerial mapping solutions that meet the needs of customers in a variety of sectors, including surveying, photogrammetry, mining, energy, agriculture, and more. Customers constantly praise the systems for their stability and endurance in rough weather, and long flight times, with one drone becoming the first to cross the Alps in 2013. 

These drones provide the backbone of fully integrated geomatics systems that help professionals collect data in a manner that is safer and more efficient than traditional methods, while also providing the tools, software, workflow, training, and support to transform raw data into insightful deliverables.

Microdrones products and services have been used by construction companies, surveyors, airports, mines, and more worldwide. Microdrones has offices in Germany, Canada, France, China, and the United States, as well as a sales, support, and distribution network spanning six continents. 

From flying solo to flying as a global team

With offices around the world, Microdrones did not have a centralized IT system. Instead, much of the support was siloed, ad-hoc, and segregated by area or industry served.

In effect, the IT department did not have an incident management system, nor an asset management system. The leadership team was therefore: 

Without organized asset management, the IT department lacked a clear idea of the PCs, servers, software, and hardware in use globally by all Microdrones personnel. This was the primary challenge in monitoring asset and software performance across the globe, which cost the company a lot of time and money.

Getting a clear view during digital transformation

As a provider of bleeding-edge technology, Microdrones always seeks to integrate technology into all areas of the business, automating operations, and delivering greater value to customers.

From an IT standpoint, SysAid was a catalyst in that effort, providing Microdrones with an accurate, global perspective through IT service management (ITSM) with built-in asset management. Mircea Pacurariu, Global IT Manager for Microdrones, summarized his company’s experience with SysAid in just a few select words: “SysAid is exactly what we needed at a pivotal moment in our company’s new digitization strategy and rapid global expansion.” 

The first step the IT team took with SysAid was to make a list of the company’s assets worldwide. The resulting snapshot was clear and complete, allowing the company to identify which assets were outdated, which needed replacement, and which needed upgrading. From a single, central dashboard, the IT team ensured every Microdrones office and business team had what they needed. 

In addition to the static information, SysAid made continuing global asset monitoring and management possible for the first time. Currently, the Microdrones IT department is using SysAid for managing the company’s servers and workstations across its global digital infrastructure

Better asset management for improved performance

With SysAid revealing the status, location, and ongoing use of all Microdrones’ digital assets, this led to immediate and sustained improvements in enterprise operations: 

Set to roll out more SysAid features 

In light of the company’s success with SysAid, Microdrones is planning to implement additional features going forward. These include the self-service portal to help end users submit incidents, which will streamline enterprise operations even further. The IT team is also in the process of configuring SysAid’s reporting and analytics for their specific needs, such as gaining insight into asset depreciation trends and the like.

In addition, Microdrones will be extending asset management to include additional network equipment, printers, and cellphones in use by their business and sales teams. More generally, these SysAid upgrades will be part of an ongoing digital transformation. The company will be centralizing management of new equipment, upgrading network-facing firewalls for consistency across all company locations, and more.