17 DE MAYO DE 2019

SYSTEM ENGINEERING
PROCESS
DRONE-FARMING

LAURA ALTIERI SAMBARTOLOME

SYSTEM ENGINEERING 2
Air navigation (UPB) 2018-2019
SYSTEM ENGINEERING PROCESS
0 BACKGROUND
0.1 REVISION OF THE COMPANY

Done-Farming is a smart farming services company based on Drone on-demand, that provide
accurately NVDI Imagery processing and information about the crops throughout the season;
and big data analysis. All the information gathered by the drone is then processed by a software
and studied by the company group of experts that will identify areas that require attention,
ground-truth those areas, and allow owners to take appropriate action.

Services:

• 3D land mapping
• Field health report
• Plant and stand plant report
• Health reports analysis

Members of the company:

• CEO
• Software Developer
• Agronomic Engineer
• Drone Pilot and Maintenance Chief

UAV Equipment:

• DJI Phantom Series NDVI / NDRE Upgrade

• Honey Comb AgDrone

Location:

• Jaén, Spain

0.2 FUTURE PROSPECTIVES

To develop a system engineering process (SEP) of this company we would need real background
from the costumers, as there is not such a company nor clients, a hypothetical 10 years-based
growth model has been implemented to study possible problems or opportunities.

Assumptions:

• 20% client year-growth beginning in 2022

• 5% hours per client year-growth beginning in 2020
➢ Clients with bigger properties
➢ Clients that use the services more than once
• 5% increase in the average commute hours from 2019 until 2021
➢ Client outside the region

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• 15% increase in the average commute hours from 2021
➢ Accepting national clients
• Pilot working capacity is assessed as follows:
8 + ( CommuteTime[h]  FieldTime[h])
x=
CommuteTime[h] + FieldTime[h]

DRONE USAGE CAPACITY

Total Number of hours per client (drone) [h]
Pilot working capacity [h]
1400
1200
1000
800
600
400
200
0
2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029

2
SOFTWARE CAPACITY
Total Number of hours per client (analysis) [h] Agro.eng. working capacity [h]

1800
1600
1400
1200
1000
800
600
400
200
0
2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029

According to this data we shall encounter the following problems.

Possible costumers’ complaints:

• Delays of the pilot

• Long waiting list specially during flowering cycle session
• Saturation of the software
• National (out of the region) costumers have huge difficulties to select a proper date

Company problems:

• Time wasted commuting is not profitable time

• Drone failure stops the company for long time
• Inability to provide a profitable national service

3
1 DEFINITION OF PROBLEM AND NEEDS ANALYSIS
From the data gather it is observed that according to the growth estimations the drone capacity
of the company will be completely saturated in 6 years and the software and analysis capacity
in 10 years. Therefore, we shall focus our efforts on drone capacity related problems.

What are the primary functions the system must perform?

• Obtain aerial imagery of the crops

• Analyse the obtained data using a software and the engineer expertise
• Provide the results in an accessible way to customers

What are the secondary the system must perform?

• Advice customers about what to do to improve their crop’s performance

• Commute to the customers field
• Organise the work schedule to avoid long distances

What must be accomplished to alleviate the stated deficiency?

• More availability of the drone

• Faster drone maintenance service
• Less commuting time between fields for the pilot
• Less waiting list time
• Service out of the Andalusian region → national service

To sum up we shall accomplish more overall drone capacity both locally and nationally.

When must this be accomplished?

The deadline should be in a 5 years’ time period, just before the demand overflows the capacity.
However it would be convenient to augment the capacity before to make sure we can make a
quality labour.

Where is this to be accomplished?

We might augment the capacity of the existing facilities or we might expand the company
nationwide.

How many times must this be accomplished?

At least once for the capacity to meet the current demand. Then we shall make other company
growth estimation analysis to assess if the company growth might lead to the same problem
again.

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2 SYSTEM FEASIBILITY ANALYSIS
To solve the overload service problem, we came up with three different approaches to improve
the drone service capacity: hire a new pilot and spit the workload, open a new branch in another
location along Spain or open a franchise in another location along Spain.

A. Hire a new pilot and spit the workload

Hiring a new pilot is the fastest and cheapest solution we shall propose.

o Required time: the training is not expected to last long, especially if the desired
employee profile is well design in terms of skills and experience.
o Expenses: it would only cost an extra 1000€/month (wage) + 400€/month (social
security) to the company.
o Logistics requirements: it would be necessary to define the job description and
specifications and then begin a recruitment process followed by a training one.
o Effectiveness: it is quite effective in the short term, however following the
assumptions made at the beginning it is clear it does not eradicate the problem
in the medium term.

DRONE USAGE CAPACITY

Total Number of hours per client (drone) [h] Pilot working capacity [h]

1800
1600
1400
1200
1000
800
600
400
200
0
2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029 2030 2031 2032

B. Open a new branch in another location along Spain

o Required time: opening a new facility would require following the same steps
already done when creating the company for the first time. Nevertheless, the
advertising and market entrance work would be largely reduced considering
that the software is already develop and the mission and vision is already
established. This expansion of the company shall be planned years ahead of the
potential problem since we may encounter more problems along the way than
the previous approach.

5
Task Number Task Description
1 Source of Funds
2 Bureaucracy Paperwork
3 Staff Hiring
4 Local Renting
5 Technology, Equipment and Furniture Buy
6 Advertising

o Expenses: we have made an approximate expenses study considering the

expenses analysis made in the previous paper. In addition, we have made an
estimation of the expected revenue income.
For that we have guessed that the total number of clients between both
branches will be a 50% more that the number of clients estimated for the old
branch. And that from 2022 the old branch expenses will increase at a constant
rate of 5% from the value of 117000€. We have also considered salary
increments and oil expenses increments due to volatility of the oil price and as
a consequence of a large van use and other minor considerations.

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1º YEAR FIXED EXPENSES
Price per unit (€) Number of units Price (€)
Furniture
Desktop 55 4 220
Conference Table 200 1 200
Chairs 45 10 450
Lamps 18 4 72
Technology
Computer 700 2 1400
Software PC 1200 2 2400
Office Home & Business Licence 220 1 220
Equipment
DJI Phantom Series NDVI / NDRE Upgrade 1700 1 1700
Honey Comb AgDrone 8000 1 8000
Extra batteries 80 4 320
Rent Deposit 978,93
Notary 150
FIXED 1º yr Payment 16110,93

REVENUE
Num. clients
Av. Outlay (€/client)
Revenue (€)
2019 110 350 38500
2020 152 350 53200
2021 210 350 73500
2022 378 357 134946
2023 441 364 160524
2024 504 371 186984
2025 567 378 214326
2026 630 385 242550
2027 693 392 271656
2028 756 399 301644
2029 819 406 332514

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EXPENSES
AVERAGE MONTH
2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029
DIRECT COSTS
CEO salary 2040 2080 2120 2160 2200 2240 2280 2320
UAV pilot salary 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000
Agronomic engineer salary 1400 1400 1400 1400 1400 1400 1400 1400
Total salary (Ts) 4440 4480 4520 4560 4600 4640 4680 4720
Social Security (Ts x 0.4) 1776 1792 1808 1824 1840 1856 1872 1888
Van lease 240 240 240 240 240 240 240 240
Oil 200 250 250 275 302,5 332,75 366,025 402,6275
TOTAL DIRECT COSTS 6656 6762 6818 6899 6982,5 7068,75 7158,025 7250,6275
INDIRECT COSTS
Liability Insurance 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13

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Drone maintenance 30 40 60 60 60 60 60 60
Rent 978,93 978,93 978,93 978,93 978,93 978,93 978,93 978,93
Utilities 180 180 180 180 180 180 180 180
Office expenses 50 60 70 70 70 70 70 70
Marketing 400 400 400 400 400 400 400 400
TOTAL INDIRECT COSTS 1651,93 1671,93 1701,93 1701,93 1701,93 1701,93 1701,93 1701,93
Capital expense 1342,5775 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
TOTAL new branch 9650,5075 8433,93 8519,93 8600,93 8684,43 8770,68 8859,955 8952,5575
YEAR TOTAL new branch 115806,09 101207,16 102239,16 103211,16 104213,16 105248,16 106319,46 107430,69
YEAR TOTAL whole company 130806,93 112836 116196 238656,09 224057,16 225089,16 226061,16 227063,16 228098,16 229169,46 230280,69
NET PROFIT (€)
120000

70000

20000

-30000

-80000

-130000
2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029

o Logistics requirements: this approach requires to follow quite a lot of steps,

source of Funds, bureaucracy paperwork, staff hiring, local selection and
renting; technology, equipment and furniture purchase, advertising etc.
o Effectiveness: we achieve to lower the commute time by splitting the territory
in two, that might provide us with enough capacity for at least the next 8 years.

DRONE USAGE CAPACITY

Total Number of hours per client (drone) [h] Pilot working capacity [h]

2000
1800
1600
1400
1200
1000
800
600
400
200
0
2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029

C. Open a franchise in another location along Spain

o Required time: aprox. 6 months (it is studied in the next chapter)
o Expenses: in this case we will have first year fixed expenses regarding legal
assistance and human resources; as well as the equipment (drones) that as
owner of the franchise we must provide to the franchisee.
Concerning the yearly expenses, we would only have indirect cost, since all the
direct costs are now responsibility of the franchise manager.
To calculate the revenues, we establish that the number of clients of the
franchise will be a 75% of the number of clients estimated for the principal

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branch. The company collects a 35% of the franchise revenue as “franchise tax”
that includes training, assistance, legal support, consultancy, guidance,
marketing, and brand usage.

1º YEAR FIXED EXPENSES

Price (€)
Legal expenses
Attorney 300
Operations manual proffesional 150
HR expenses
Training material 100
Equipment
DJI Phantom Series NDVI / NDRE Upgrade 1700
Honey Comb AgDrone 8000
Extra batteries 200
Notary 150
FIXED 1º yr Payment 10600

REVENUE
Num. Clients prin Num. Clients franchise
Av. Outlay prin (€/client)
Av. Outlay franchiseRevenue
(€/client)
(€)
2019 110 350 38500
2020 152 350 53200
2021 210 350 73500
2022 252 189 357 357 113579,55
2023 294 220,5 364 364 135107,7
2024 336 252 371 371 157378,2
2025 378 283,5 378 378 180391,05
2026 420 315 385 385 204146,25
2027 462 346,5 392 392 228643,8
2028 504 378 399 399 253883,7
2029 546 409,5 406 406 279865,95

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EXPENSES
AVERAGE MONTH
2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029
DIRECT COSTS
CEO salary
UAV pilot salary
Agronomic engineer salary
Total salary (Ts)
Social Security (Ts x 0.4)
Van lease
Oil
TOTAL DIRECT COSTS 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

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INDIRECT COSTS
Liability Insurance 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13
Drone maintenance 30 40 60 60 60 60 60 60
Utilities 180 180 180 180 180 180 180 180
Office expenses 50 60 70 70 70 70 70 70
Marketing 400 400 400 400 400 400 400 400
TOTAL INDIRECT COSTS 673 693 723 723 723 723 723 723
Capital expense 883,3333333 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
TOTAL franchise 1556,333333 693 723 723 723 723 723 723
YEAR TOTAL franchise 18676 8316 8676 8676 8676 8676 8676 8676
YEAR TOTAL whole company 130806,93 112836 116196 141526 131166 131526 131526 131526 131526 131526 131526
NET PROFIT (€)

80000

30000

-20000

-70000

-120000
2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029

o Logistics requirements: again, this system operation is quite complex in terms

of logistic requirement, we would need to prepare legal documents, establish a
valuable brand, develop a training program, develop marketing plans, recruit
franchisers, train franchisers and finally operate and maintain the franchise.
o Effectiveness: the measures make the clients split between both territories, so
the client’s year growth is 10% in the principal branch, half of what we had
estimated. In addition, the commute time year growth rate slows down because
we no longer have to meet the national demand.

DRONE USAGE CAPACITY

Total Number of hours per client (drone) [h] Pilot working capacity [h]

1200

1000

800

600

400

200

0
2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029

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A B C
Required time + +++ +++
Expenses + ++++++ +++
Logistics + ++++ ++++
requirements
Effectiveness ++ ++++++ +++++
Advantages Fast. Expensive (direct Not that expensive
Cheap. costs). (only indirect costs)
Remain in control of Low risk in case of
all the revenues. failure.
Problem solved for Problem solved for
many years. many years.
Disadvantages We might have to Hugely expensive. Lose control of some
assess the problem High risk. part of the
again in very little management and
time. brand usage

Conclusion: With all this information we have decided to open a franchise in 2022 because by
that time we won’t have enough money to invest in a new facility. A franchise is the perfect
formula to meet national demand, reducing drone usage in the region, without risking all the
company capital.

The positive impact is rather instantaneous, and it allow us to hire more personnel in case we
have the same problem locally in the future.

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3 SYSTEM OPERATIONAL REQUIREMENTS
OPERATIONAL CONCEPT:

1. Mission definition

What is the system to accomplish?

Divide the workload and respond to the growing national service demand that the
principal branch is not able to cover by itself. In other words, the new system is design
to cover the demand that the principal branch is unable to meet therefore generating
more income. For that the system must provide a reliable drone-farming service in the
same way the principal branch is doing.

How will the system accomplish its objectives?

By copying the existing formula that is successfully working at the principal branch, but
in a new strategic location.

2. Performance and physical parameters

What are the critical system performance parameters?

The critical performance parameters are accuracy of the results and recommended
measures, speed to provide such results; speed of the drone, quality of the imagery and
the time to commute from one customer to the following.

How are they related to the mission scenario(s)?

The accuracy of the data obtention and analysis assures that the system would provide
an accurate and reliable service. On the other hand, the faster the system provides those
results along with the ability to meet more clients per day assures more income for the
company and a maximum demand coverage.

3. Operational deployment or distribution

How is the system to be supported, and by whom?

The principal branch, that is currently acting as the central operation centre of the
company, is responsible for providing and supporting the new system, or franchise, with
the necessary means that enables the correct performance of the services currently
rendered.
The software is already developed so it won’t need to be purchased. The company has
to invest approximately 19000 € to buy the equipment for the new system, as well as to
hire the pertinent professionals that will develop the legal paperwork and the
operational manual. For that we would have to ask for a bank loan that we will be able
to pay in 2 to 3 years if the estimations above are correct.

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What are the anticipated quantities of equipment, software and personnel required,
and where are they to be located?
Concerning equipment, the new system will need two drones: DJI Phantom Series NDVI
/ NDRE Upgrade and Honey Comb AgDrone; four extra batteries; and the image analysis
software.
Regarding human resources the system must have a franchisee owner, and an
operational manual containing information about job specification and know-to-how
descriptions; as well as proper training material. The recruitment of the remaining
personnel is responsibility of the franchise owner that should follow the instructions
given at the operational manual.
The company must support the franchise in the legal, marketing and maintenance area.
For that we shall design a marketing plan, quality control and maintenance protocol.
All the bureaucratic elements would be located at the principal branch. The equipment
will be located in the principal branch storage if it is purchased before the renting of the
new facility.

Equipment
Element Quantity
DJI Phantom Series NDVI / NDRE Upgrade 1
Honey Comb AgDrone 1
Batteries 4
Image analysis software 1

Human Resources
Franchise owner
Operational manual
Training material
Recruitment plan

Bureaucratic Resources and Franchise plans

Marketing plan
Legal papers
Maintenance plan
Sales plan
Income goals

The location of the franchise, or new system, is the result of a national market analysis,
the objective is to divide the workload and to minimize the interference/conflict
between the principal branch’s and franchise’s work area. So presumably the location
would be somewhere in the centre of Spain. The potential user locations would be their
own fields at a maximum distance of 2 hours by car from the franchise facility.

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When does the system become fully operational?
We shall begin the design of the new system in January 2022 and it would become fully
operational at mid May 2022.

Task Number Task Description

1 Source of Funds
2 Make national market analysis→ Select
location
3 Prepare legal documents
4 Develop training program
5 Develop marketing plan
6 Select franchisee
7 Let franchisee set the facility and train
personnel
8 Advertise

4. Operational life cycle (horizon)

What is the total inventory profile throughout the system life cycle?
Who will be operating the system and for what period?
The system is then going to be operated by a third party, the franchise owner or
franchisee, we as a company utilize the system to relieve the principal branch workload
and to make extra money by the usage of our brand and software.
The franchise is supposed to be operated in the exact same way as the principal branch.
To make sure of that we shall implement quality controls, customer surveys, income
revision etc.
The lifespan of the system would depend on the behaviour of the demand. If it grows at
the same rate there would be necessary to open a new franchise or increase the existent
personnel. So, the system will be operative as long as it covers an actual demand.

During its lifespan the system would require constant maintenance, legal and marketing
support. It would also need software and equipment updates.

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5. Utilization requirements

How is the system to be used by the customer or operator in the field?

As we have already stated the system is design to be used in the same way as the
principal branch, whose utilization requirements are described in the business plan.

However, we shall make a little revision:

• The system should attract clients using advertising campaigns and taking
advantage of the company brand.
• Clients should then make an appointment and provide their location.
• The team schedules the work of the week trying to make the commute distance
as small as possible.
• Pilot drives to the field and operates the drone to take aerial images.
• Engineers receive the data at the facilities and analyse it with the software.
• The best solution regarding to when and where to use pesticides is provided to
the client.

Regarding what should the principal manager do:

• Provide training both to the manager and to all the personnel.

• Income control of the franchise.
• Costumer survey.
• Adapt to new manager necessities.
• Redesigns the concerning plan if necessary.
• Collect 35% of the income.

6. Effectiveness factors

Given that the system will perform, how effective or efficient is it?
Regarding the readiness of the franchise we have guessed the system will take the
approximate time of 5 months to become fully operational, which is not than much time
considering it is supposed to solve the capacity problems for at least 8 years or more.
Regarding cost-effectiveness we estimate to have recover the initial investment by
2023, so it would only take 1 year to make the system profitable. (If we take a 35% of
the franchise’s income in 1 year, we would obtain 23615€ when the investment made
was 18700€).
As it is a complex system dependent on multiple variables such as personnel
performance, drone & software performance etc. we don’t expect to have catastrophic
failures since that would require the malfunction of several barriers.

7. Environment

The only environmental concern is about the runways that the van will take and how
that may affect its performance, however that matter concerns to the franchisee.

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4 THE MAINTENANCE AND SUPPORT CONCEPT
The system might have four different types of failure that would require maintenance
and support:

• Hardware: drone or battery failure constitutes the most important failure that
we may encounter in this section. That equipment is part of the company capital
so it should be defined what to do since it is our responsibility. Other equipment
failure that the franchise could encounter such as van, computer, furniture etc.
is franchisee’s responsibility and it won’t be addressed.
• Software: as the analysis software used in the franchise is the one used at the
principal branch and therefore its updates and maintenance are performed by
the principal team.
• Human resources: personnel recruitment is part of the franchise owner work;
however, it is the company duty to provide a job position description along with
the pertinent training. The company should check if the procedures are
implemented correctly and if the training is successful.
• Economic: if the franchise doesn’t reach the economic goals, the company must
provide the required support to overcome the situation.

4.1 Levels of maintenance

HARDWARE (UAV)
Criteria Org. Maintenance Intermediate Depot, supplier or
Maintenance manufacturer
maintenance
Where? Field or the franchise Franchise facility Depot/Suppliers
facility
Whom? Pilot Technician Manufacturer’s
personnel
Whose equipment? Organisation Equipment provided Manufacturer
equipment by the repair equipment
company
Type of work? Turn on/off Detail inspection Complex repair
Visual inspection Complete Rare piece assembly
Disassembly battery disassembly Electronic check out
Reset Wing calibration and repair
Change the wings Major repairs Change the product
Clean the camera (guarantee)

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SOFTWARE
Criteria Org. Maintenance Intermediate Depot, supplier or
Maintenance manufacturer
maintenance
Where? Franchise computer Principal facility Informatic company
Whom? Analysis employee Principal software Informatician
engineer
Whose equipment? Franchise equipment Organisational Informatic company
facility equipment equipment
Type of work? Turn on/ off Reset Deep repair
Reset Check code Check hardware
Check program barriers
Update Software Repair malware

HUMAN RESOURCES
Criteria Org. Maintenance Intermediate Depot, supplier or
Maintenance manufacturer
maintenance
Where? Franchise facility or Franchise facility Franchise facility
field
Whom? Customer Franchise manager CEO (principal
manager)
Whose equipment?
Type of work? Observe if the work Observe employees Customers survey
is done efficiently work Ongoing training
See if the employee Control employees’ Hire/fire decisions
behaviour is performance
professional Monitor possible
work team problems

ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE
Criteria Org. Maintenance Intermediate Depot, supplier or
Maintenance manufacturer
maintenance
Where? Franchise facility Franchise facility
Whom? Franchise manager CEO (principal
manager)
Whose equipment? Franchise equipment Organisational
equipment
Type of work? Observe economic Redesign marketing
flow plan
Observe customers Redesign finance
flow plan
Asses employees’
performance

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4.2 Repair Policies

Drones are completely reparable as long as the failure has occurred in the workplace
during work hours and while carrying a responsible use.
Office equipment is not reparable by the company.
Training plans as well as marketing/financial plan are revisable and reintroduced by
the company if necessary.

4.3 Organizational responsibilities

Drones, drones’ equipment and software is company responsibility along all the
franchise lifespan.
Results given to franchise’s costumers are responsibility of the franchise.
As the results are applied to crops and the effects depend on the season the
franchise will be responsible for a limited period, then the responsibility falls on the
customer.

4.4 Maintenance support elements

The company may count with several resources that help the maintenance of the
franchise.

Support element

Hardware Drone extra wings, drone extra lens, drone

extra pieces, lens cleaning material, basic
toolbox

Software Anti-virus, hard disk with software copy,

updates

Human Resources Headquarters, onsite & ongoing training

manual. Job description, candidates’
profile. Human resources manual (deal
with sabotage, harassment etc.)

Economic Financial and marketing alternative plan

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4.5 Effectiveness requirements

Element Effectiveness requirement

Hardware Drone < 5h/month reparation time
Software Maximum 3 system’s collapse per
Analysis Software
year
Pilot 2 years experience (minimum)
Skills supervised by principal pilot
Manager 5 years managerial experience
(minimum)
Human Resources
Engineers 2 years experience (minimum)
8/10 success rate
Training 10 days headquarters training
20 days onsite training
Marketing plan Get least a 50% of the principal
Economic
Financial plan branch’s costumers

4.6 Environment

There is little to comment in this section since most of the maintenance aspects are
related to software or paperwork. Regarding the hardware maintenance at
intermediate level, we must assure there is a proper work bench with all the tools
available and with special drawers to avoid small pieces getting lost.

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5 IDENTIFICATION AND PRIORITIZATION OF TECHNICAL
PERFORMANCE MEASURES
To address this chapter, we shall develop a “House of Quality” diagram to evaluate both
customers needs and design organizations and how much weight should every aspect have in
the system development.

Firstly, we have identified possible design parameters, that constitute technical responses to
accomplish the system mission.

In this case these parameters are:

• Drone flight time: the idea is to minimize the time needed by the drone to obtain the
imagery and data, to optimize all the time available.
• Software time to process: again, the idea is to minimize the time it takes the software
to process the data.
• Commute time: as we have seen the long commuting time is decreasing the company
capacity, which was the problem in the first case, so the aim is to minimize this time.
• Drone camera resolution: it is also an important aspect since it could ease the post
processing work.
• Drone maintenance speed: having a little fleet of UAVs it is detrimental not to have all
the available drones fully operational at any time. However, failures and reparations are
unavoidable, the goal is to minimize the time the drone is at maintenance.
• Engineers qualification: having a good qualified group of workers is one of the keys to
the success of the company.
• Drone speed: having a fast drone might maximize the number of clients we can meet.
• Software complexity: if necessary, we should improve the software complexity to
increase its performance.
• Personnel availability: having an efficient workload distribution results in more clients.

Then, we should get customer feedback to know what their main concerns are. We are going to
suppose than when looking for a provider of aerial imagery, such as our system, they look for:

• Fast results
• Accurate results
• Pleasant treatment
• High quality imagery
• Service immediacy
• Fast drone flight
• Easy access to results
• Fluid communication
• Short waiting-list time
• Cheap service

Making the relationship analysis between all these factors obtain the following results. The two
more important factors for our clients appeared to be the obtention of accurate results and the
easy access to such results, we may observe that these are software related problems that are
well covered by the system.

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Very close in the importance ranking we can find that the costumers want fast results, service
immediacy and no waiting-list time. Concerning these aspects, the company has obtained
medium to low results, that is why the system is design to overcome such problems.

Concerning the functional requirements, we can say that the main areas where we have room
to improve are (in order of importance): drone performance, personnel availability and
commuting time.

These results reinforce the idea that opening a franchise is the most optimal way to fulfil the
needs of the company. Since it would certainly resolve the availability and commuting time
problem, thus leading to cover some of the costumers needs such as fast results or service
immediacy.

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Drone flight time
Software time to process
Functional Requirements

Commute time
Drone camera resolution - +
Drone maintenance time
Proximity between locations -
Engineers qualification - -
Drone speed -
Software complexity - + +
Personnel availability - - -
Functional Requirements
Direction of Improvement ▼ ▼ ▼ ▲ ▼ ▲ ▲ ▲ □ ▲ Customer Competitive Assessment Correlations
Proximity between locations
Software time to process

Drone camera resolution

Drone maintenance time

Customer Requirements

Engineers qualification
Customer Importance

Personnel availability

Best drone company

Software complexity
Drone flight time

Cheap company
Relative Weight

Commute time

Big company
Drone speed

Our Product

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12% 7 Fast results ○ ● ▽ ○ ○ ○ ● ● 3 5 4 1 Direct +
15% 9 Accurate results ● ● ● 4 5 2 5 Inverse -
5% 3 Pleasant treatment ▽ ▽ 5 3 3 3 No Correlation
10% 6 High quality imagery ● ○ 4 5 1 5
14% 8 Service immediacy ○ ● ● ○ ● 2 4 5 2 Relationships Weight
3% 2 Fast drone flight ● ▽ ○ ● 3 4 3 5 Strong ● 9
15% 8,5 Easy access to results ○ ● 3 5 2 3 Medium ○ 3
3% 2 Fluid communication ○ ● 5 2 4 3 Weak ▽ 1
10% 6 Short waiting-list time ● ● ● ● ○ ○ ● ● 3 4 5 2
12% 7 Cheap service ● ○ ● ● 3 1 5 4 Direction of Improvement
Importance Rating Sum (Importance x307,69
Relationship)
200 227 306 92,3 154 382 200 515 359 Maximize ▲
Relative Weight 11% 7% 8% 11% 3% 6% 14% 7% 19% 13% Depnds □
Our Product 3 4 2 4 3 2 5 3 4 3 Minimize ▼
Big company 4 4 4 4 2 5 3 3 5 3
Cheap company 3 5 1 1 3 1 2 3 1 4
Best drone company 5 2 3 5 4 2 3 5 2 4
Technical Competitive Assessment
6 FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS
The development of the franchise has 13 functions followed by several subfunctions and lower
level functions, that we are going to explain in more detail:

1. Set mission, vision and goals of the company

2. Set a valuable brand

One of the first things we shall do in order to expand our business is ‘be someone’,
create a valuable and recognisable brand that costumers may recognise and look for.
Prior to that we shall well establish what are the mission, vision and goals of the
company.

3. Make a national market analysis → to determine what are the real possibilities for the
franchise to survive in a new market we should study the target costumers, possible
competitors and have a look at the real estate market.
4. Select location → with all the data gather at the previous step we are set to select the
most suitable location for the franchise.

5. Prepare legal documents → there is a lot of legal paperwork to do so to prepare

everything we will hire an attorney to help us prepare the standard disclosure and the
audited financial statements.
6. Develop training program → As franchisors we have to create a training program that
ensures the well performance of the franchise. We must create an operation manual
and for that we should first hire a professional along with whom we will set operational
standards and know-to-how documents.
7. Develop marketing plans → for this function we have to determine a target market,
analyse competitors, set goals, outline strategies and finally set a budget.

To step to the next function, we have to make sure that functions 5,6 & 7 are completed

8. Recruit franchisee → the next step in our plan is to recruit a franchisee for that we must
design a franchise sale program containing all the economic conditions in which the
brand will be sale then to look for candidates we can visit expos, franchise trade-fairs,
go online or contact entrepreneurs.
9. Select franchisee → once we have a few candidates, we shall select one of them to do
that we have to study the candidates’ economic power, their previous experience and
skills; and create a profile.

10. Arrange franchise document

11. Sign documents

Once we have completed steps 10 & 11, we can keep going.

12. Operate the franchise → to operate the franchise there are four steps we must
accomplish.
First, we ought to provide headquarters for the manager, this type of training requires
the development of a training program; then we have to show the franchisee the
facilities and then proceed to do a formal training based on videos and learning material.

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Second, we shall provide onsite franchise training for the employees and franchisee, the
goals are to understand the employees’ needs, weakness and strengths and work on
them.

Third, ongoing franchise training. This is the training provided once the franchise is
operational and consists on updating procedures and protocols and fix deficiencies.

Lastly, we will run a test for competence to check the training was successfully
implemented.

13. Maintain the franchise → this is a constant loop to make sure the system works
properly. We will begin with an income inspection to see if the franchise reaches the
defined goals; if it doesn’t, we will review the marketing plan or the financial plan or the
human resources plan to see what is wrong. If any of them is not working, we will
reassess it. However, if the incomes are just fine, we will proceed to do a costumer
feedback; if the response is not satisfactory, we should check the costumer service, the
equipment and the software. If the problem comes from the customer service, we
should step back to the ongoing franchise training to make sure all the employees know
how to develop their function. However, if the problem comes from equipment or
software failures, we might contact the technician and if that doesn’t work upgrade the
software and buy new equipment.

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