Jason Beltran was drowning in cable reels.
As Warehouse Manager of LAPP's newly consolidated 134,000 square foot Indiana facility, he watched his team scramble every weekend, throwing five people at cycle counts that never seemed to end. In a 40-person warehouse, that meant 12.5% of his workforce was walking racks with RF scanners, trying desperately to count inventory twice a year.
They were failing.
Today, that same warehouse counts its entire inventory 26 times per year – 13x more than before – with just 2 people managing the process. Weekend overtime for counting is gone. Inventory accuracy is up. Labor costs are down 60%.
This is exactly how LAPP fixed their inventory problem in 30 days – including the mistakes that will save warehouse managers weeks of headaches.
What's Inside:
The Breaking Point
LAPP's inventory problems started with consolidation.
The company had merged operations from New Jersey and Atlanta into their Indiana facility. Freight arrived faster than the green team could process. Simple RF scanner errors cascaded into problems.
The only solution was manual: someone walking rack by rack, scanning every single reel, trying to figure out where things actually were.
LAPP needed five people working full-time just to attempt counting everything twice a year. When inventory issues arose, those same people had to stop counting and start searching.
They were stealing labor from other areas and working weekends to keep up.
"We're throwing all this labor all of a sudden every weekend trying to get all our scans done," Jason says. They were constantly behind. Something had to change.
Finding a Solution Fast
Lou Apostolico, LAPP's Logistics Process Manager, started researching automation options. "Everyone's looking for AI, for that improved intelligence where robots can take over," Lou says.
Drones kept appearing in search results. The promise was compelling: autonomous flight, automatic counting, no human error.
LAPP evaluated 4-5 drone vendors with specific criteria:
How fast can it be operational?
What's the actual cost?
How complex is integration?
What's post-installation support like?
Most vendors proposed long implementations with complex integration projects. Corvus offered something different: operational in 30 days.
"From the first initial conversation that my director and Lou were a part of, Corvus was hands down our favorite," Beltran recalls.
After selecting Corvus, LAPP moved quickly to implementation.
The Implementation
The Corvus implementation was surprisingly simple.
The Corvus team arrived at LAPP's Indiana warehouse on a Monday morning. By Friday afternoon, they were gone.
During that time, they:
Measure all racks and rack heights
Set up the landing pad (which also doubles as the charging station)
Map the facility layout
Configure the system
The next three weeks involved remote configuration:
Test flights to ensure accurate scanning
Weekly calls with the inventory team
Report setup and validation
Training (about one hour total)
Day 30: Fully operational.
Daily Operations After Go-Live
Once operational, LAPP's inventory counting transformed from a labor-intensive scramble to an automated overnight process.
The drone flies nightly, starting at 6 PM after workers leave. LAPP configures which racks to count for each flight – they can include or exclude specific areas based on their needs. This flexibility allows them to complete 26 full inventory counts per year, compared to their previous goal of just 2 per year.
During scheduled flights, the drone determines the most efficient route for its mission, scanning thousands of SKUs and capturing images of every location throughout the night.
When the morning shift arrives after a drone flight, the inventory team finds a complete report waiting. The dashboard shows flight history, scan results, and - most importantly - photos of every location scanned.
"It's hard to argue when you see a picture," notes Lou.
The two-person inventory team then has a streamlined morning routine:
Review successful scans for validation
Investigate failed scans (typically labels at bad angles or pushed too far back)
Physically check problem locations
Fix any label placement issues
Manually enter the validated data into SAP (Note: Corvus data can be directly integrated with SAP, but LAPP hasn't implemented this functionality yet)
This process takes 2-3 hours each morning after a flight. While not fully automated – the team still needs to validate exceptions and enter data manually – the improvement is dramatic. What once required five people working all day now takes two people a few hours.
SOP Improvements
One month into operations, the drone provided valuable visibility into label placement practices that needed standardization.
Labels faced different directions. Some were pushed too far back in the racks. Others sat at bad angles. These inconsistencies led to failed scans that the team had to manually verify – exactly the kind of operational insight both LAPP and Corvus expected to work through together during implementation.
LAPP used this feedback to strengthen their operations:
Trained the warehouse team on optimal label placement for scanning
Established a clear standard: all labels must face outward near the rack edge
Systematically improved problem labels as they were identified
Added label placement to standard operating procedures
The drone had become a valuable quality control system, providing the operational feedback needed to optimize processes that manual counting never revealed.
The Numbers: Before vs. After
LAPP's transformation delivered measurable results:
Before Drones:
5 people dedicated to cycle counting
2 complete inventory counts per year
Weekend overtime every week
12.5% of workforce on inventory
Constantly behind on count targets
Stealing labor from other departments
After Drones:
2 people managing inventory validation
26 complete inventory counts per year
Zero weekend overtime for counting
5% of workforce on inventory
Exceeding all count targets
No labor sharing needed
The 13x increase in count frequency drives value beyond labor savings: faster error detection, reduced shrinkage, fewer shipping errors, and improved customer satisfaction.
Six Months Later: Maintenance and Vendor Partnership
After six months of regular operations, LAPP's experience with both the drone hardware and vendor relationship has been remarkably positive.
On the maintenance side, they've had exactly one issue: The drone once landed in the middle of a rack instead of returning to its charging pad. "We had to get our ladder, get our scissors lift, put it back on the rack so it charged, and that issue was resolved," Beltran recalls. Total downtime: about 10 minutes.
That's the entire maintenance story. No service contracts, no specialized technicians, no complex repairs. The drone charges itself and performs missions based on LAPP's required counting cadence without intervention.
The system's reliability comes from its fully autonomous design: Corvus One operates completely independently, running missions based on LAPP's requirements without any need for manual intervention. This Robot-as-a-Service model means LAPP's team doesn't need to learn piloting skills or manage flight operations – it's out of sight, out of mind. Corvus handles all hardware, software, and performance optimization to ensure the system meets LAPP's counting goals, with any adjustments or configurations managed remotely by Corvus's team.
This partnership makes the vendor relationship critical.
LAPP has monthly calls with Corvus – not just for technical support, but for continuous improvement. Both sides share learnings. When LAPP requested specific report modifications, like highlighting certain errors in red, Corvus opened a development ticket.
This responsiveness matters because any system changes must go through Corvus.
The partnership extends beyond troubleshooting. Corvus shares insights from other implementations, while LAPP provides operational feedback that helps improve the product. It's collaborative rather than transactional.
Unexpected Benefits
The drone became LAPP's innovation showcase.
During warehouse tours, Jason runs five-minute demos. Visitors immediately pull out phones to record videos. At a global LAPP meeting, colleagues from the UK and Germany peppered Lou with questions about expanding to their facilities.
More importantly, warehouse team morale improved. Instead of dreading inventory counts, they take pride in their automated system. It signals that LAPP invests in technology and their facility's future.
What LAPP Would Do Differently
Looking back on the implementation, LAPP identified two key areas they'd approach differently:
Fix label standards before the drone arrives "Label placement was the biggest thing that I learned right away – we weren't great at that," Jason admits. The drone exposed inconsistent label placement that created unnecessary additional work. Standardizing label placement before implementation would have improved scan rates from day one and saved hours of manual verification.
Get IT and corporate stakeholders involved from the start While the drone system can integrate directly with SAP and other major WMS platforms, LAPP is still working through internal licensing requirements and approval processes to enable automatic data transfer. They're also reviewing their corporate "four-eye principle" policy to recognize the drone's photographic evidence as verification. "When this drone can actually register our cycle counts inside of SAP automatically, it's going to be beautiful," says Jason. LAPP is actively working toward full integration, but getting IT involved earlier in the vendor selection process would have accelerated this timeline and helped capture additional efficiencies sooner. The lesson: bring IT stakeholders to initial vendor discussions to map out integration requirements and timelines upfront.
Despite these challenges, the transformation is clear: What took five people all day now takes two people a few hours. Even with manual data entry, the labor savings and accuracy improvements justify the investment.
What You Can Learn From LAPP's Experience
Based on LAPP's experience, here are key lessons if you are considering automation:
Start where the pain is obvious and measurable. LAPP had 5 people working weekends just to attempt counting inventory twice a year. They picked this problem because they could measure it (labor hours), see it (weekend overtime), and solve it (mature drone technology existed). Don't automate something vague - automate something you can count.
Manual workarounds beat waiting for perfect integration. Corvus offers full SAP integration, but LAPP chose to start with manual data entry while working through internal IT requirements. They're already capturing significant labor savings and accuracy improvements even without full automation. The lesson: you can start benefiting immediately with partial automation while building toward the complete solution.
The vendor relationship matters as much as the technology. LAPP has monthly calls with Corvus where both sides share learnings and improvements. This isn't a support ticket relationship - it's a partnership. With subscription models, you're buying ongoing collaboration, not just hardware.
The real value isn't just the labor you save - it's the problems you stop having. LAPP cut inventory labor by 60%, but that's not the only reason this worked. Going from 2 counts to 26 per year means they catch errors in days instead of months. Every location now has photographic proof, ending the "I swear I put it there" debates. When building your ROI case, labor savings may get the project approved, but accuracy improvements and faster error detection also deliver real value.
Make automation visible to build organizational momentum. LAPP demos the drone to every visitor. It became their innovation symbol. When people see automation working, they stop fearing it and start requesting it.
Should You Do This?
Drone inventory counting makes sense if:
Inventory counting consumes 10%+ of labor
Standardized racking systems exist
ROI covers technology plus process improvement
Leadership supports workflow efficiency improvements
One person can be dedicated to daily validation
80% automation is acceptable vs. waiting for 100%
LAPP transformed inventory operations in 30 days with one drone. But the real transformation was organizational – learning to value speed over perfection, to fix problems automation exposes, and to build on small wins.
The drone flying through LAPP's warehouse isn't just counting inventory. It's setting a new standard for accuracy and revealing opportunities for continuous improvement.
