This capstone assesses Scope 2 emission reductions achieved by autonomous drone-based inventory scanning compared to traditional forklift-based inventory scanning in warehouse operations. Conducted in collaboration with Verity and a major third-party logistics provider (3PL), this study develops two discreteevent simulation models to capture and compare drone-based and forklift-based inventory scanning operations across varying warehouse sizes and geographic regions. The models incorporate vehicle movement, energy consumption, drone and forklift fleet sizes, warehouse lighting requirements, and regional electricity emissions factors across North America and Europe. Operational differences between drones and forklifts, including travel distance, lighting usage, and scanning capabilities, are used to estimate total energy consumption and resulting emissions. Across all modeled scenarios, drone-based inventory scanning produced significantly lower Scope 2 emissions than forklift-based operations, with reductions of approximately 99.4% once lighting-related emissions are included. Even when only vehicles are compared and all warehouse-related emissions are excluded, forklift scanning operations still produced substantially higher emissions due to greater energy consumption during travel and material handling. The resulting simulations provide a scalable decision support tool to help prioritize drone deployments within the 3PL’s global network from a sustainability-focused perspective.
