It is clear by now that you can use drones just about anywhere. So too for inspections of amusement and water parks. The West Edmonton Mall in Edmonton, Canada is not only the largest mall in North America. It also contains the largest indoor water park in North America and the largest indoor triple-loop roller coaster in the world: the Mindbender.

Intro

Flyability's Elios drone was deployed to inspect the infrastructure of the West Edmonton Mall’s World Waterpark nd the Mindbender-rollercoaster. Thanks to the Elios' unique ability to fly in tight spaces, all involved were able to view the infrastructure supporting the park's attractions much more accurately than ever before. At the same time, the deployment of this drone brought a shorter inspection time - from 10-20 hours to 1-2 hours - and a cost reduction of potentially 80%.

The WEM staff found that the Elios not only helped them carry out inspections faster, safer and more cost-effectively, but it also allowed them to see things they had never seen before. Even using scaffolding, parts of the infrastructure are difficult or even impossible to inspect using manual methods. With the Elios, they were able to fly into these tight, high spaces and see every nook and cranny up close.

Customer needs

Both Galaxyland and World Waterpark receive thousands of visitors every day. So safety is a high priority for the team in charge of park management. A crucial part of that safety is carrying out regular inspections of park infrastructure. There, areas are identified where maintenance is needed so that consequently work can be carried out and accidents avoided.

Inspecting roller coasters and water park attractions can be incredibly challenging, not to mention expensive. One of the biggest problems in managing large, physically complex assets like these is that it is usually not practical to inspect every square metre of the structures and attractions. For example, to inspect a higher part of an attraction - which is e.g. 15 metres high - or the structure that supports it, an inspection team must first rent and erect scaffolding and then have an inspector climb up the scaffolding. After that, the scaffolding has to be taken down and rebuilt each time to continue the inspection of other areas. Time-consuming and expensive.

"There are so many places in these two parks where we can't physically come to do an inspection. Just to look at them, we have to put up scaffolding or get people on ropes to enter the area, ... just to establish whether there is a problem. That's really difficult if you want a quick answer and want to know immediately how things are."

- Brian Mykitiuk, director of Engineering and Maintenance at West Edmonton Mall

Manual inspections are not only slow, expensive and potentially dangerous. They are also often limited in access for inspectors. Even using scaffolding, ropes and booms, there are still parts of both World Waterpark and Galaxyland that are too high or cramped to inspect manually.

Solution

A certified drone pilot from a Flyability reseller conducted a visual inspection of key parts of both parks using the Elios.

West Edmonton Mall staff, the drone pilot and an employee of the company in charge of inspections at the mall watched the live feed from the Elios so they could see where maintenance was needed.

Results

With the Elios  key assets in both World Waterpark and Galaxyland could be inspected in about 10% of the time a manual inspection usually takes.

Using the Elios was also much less expensive than a manual approach. With the Elios, costs were reduced from about US$68,000 to US$11,000, a saving of US$57,000 or 84% of the original cost.

Besides saving money and increasing efficiency, using the Elios meant that no one had to climb up scaffolding to carry out a manual inspection. This led to a reduction in potential damage exposure for inspection staff.

Conclusion

De voordelen van het gebruik van de Elios in plaats van een manuele aanpak bij inspectie zijn in deze case overduidelijk. Zo duidelijk dat het management van West Edmonton Mall overweegt om de drone te gebruiken voor inspecties van het volledige winkelcentrum, dat een indrukwekkende 490.000 m2 bestrijkt.

"I think using the Elios will be beneficial not only for our two parks, but also for the entire mall. We have many other high and hard-to-reach places that I would like to get a view of. We have an ice rink whose ceiling I would like to inspect and a big lake with a pirate ship ... just to name a few places. I think using a drone will be an advantage for all our operations, especially when we need quick answers."

- Bradley Pyke, West Edmonton Mall Supervisor