Manufacturers’ Monthly spoke with Philippe Gerard, Head of APAC Manufacturing & Logistics at Nokia, about digitalising the manufacturing process, and why 5G implementation is the cornerstone upon which Industry 4.0 successes are built.
Much has been made in the manufacturing industry – and beyond – of the possibilities inherent in Industry 4.0 for building resilient, dynamic, productive, efficient, sustainable, and safe operations.
And yet, the full range of those possibilities hasn’t yet been fully explored, said Philippe Gerard, Head of APAC Manufacturing & Logistics at Nokia. More specifically, while digitalisation has for years been a big factor and talking point on the IT side of operations, even relatively recently opportunities for digitalisation had not penetrated down to the manufacturing floor.
“Three years ago the focus was still primarily on connecting – and interconnecting – IT systems,” Gerard said.
“But today we are having more conversations about the possibilities of 5G for digitalising and optimising the manufacturing side of things.”
Gerard noted that 5G is a game- changer for manufacturing processes by virtue of its “low latency” – minimal delay processing and communicating data between points in a network system – and its “robustness” compared with competing alternatives.
“Speed in transferring data wirelessly on the manufacturing floor is obviously a big advantage, as more and more processes are automated, but how this is achieved in practice is where we see the advantages of employing 5G,” he said.
Gerard contrasted using 5G on the manufacturing floor with using Wi-Fi to wirelessly connect systems and transfer data.
While Wi-Fi is a suitable technology to support IT operations and certain non-critical workflows on the production floor, 5G offers the bandwidth, speed and reliability most manufacturing applications require.
“With Wi-Fi, you require a lot of access points because it has a relatively short radius – and so therefore mobility on the manufacturing floor becomes a challenge, just as it would were a user jumping from one Wi-Fi connection to another with their mobile phone rather than being connected all the time to a 5G network.
“It’s a distinction our customers have come more and more to understand in the past few years,” he said.
“But for non- customers it’s a key message we are still communicating: 5G is high speed, mobile, and very resilient. This latter quality – resilience – is key here. For example, we’ve worked with customers manufacturing steel products and doing welding at their operations. Such operations often have a lot of radio interferences, which easily disrupt attempts to digitalize processes with Wi-Fi. 5G, on the other hand, is immune to such disruptions.”
Building a 5G digitalized ecosystem
Building a 5G digitalized ecosystem starts with innovation and collaboration through projects like Arena 2036 in Germany, the 5G futures lab in Australia and other innovation sites in Japan, and Korea. These initiatives allow companies to collaborate in real-time to build-out and prove use cases before they reach the factory floor.
An example of this work is the innovative 5G and robotics work being done by Nokia and OMRON. This work will help advance factory robotics through 5G connectivity to bring Autonomous Mobile Robot (AMR) technologies to the forefront of the manufacturing toolset.
Instead of feeding materials into one end, and having different modules directly connected to each other – working and shaping the materials in one way, then passing them directly to the next for further modification, with the final product coming out at the end – now separated manufacturing modules can operate independently and flexibly, with mobile robots taking the output from one module and carrying it to various different modules.
This introduces great flexibility and productivity into manufacturing operations, because the various modules are no longer all connected together to output one final product.
Instead, by splitting up the process, individual material outputs from one module can be carried by mobile robots to various different locations as inputs for myriad different final products. This is a boon because, while each final product might be different, oftentimes they are comprised of individual components and materials that are shared with other final products.
The benefits of these innovations pay forward when we see leading companies like Arcelik, one of the world’s largest consumer appliance manufacturers, bring the benefits of 5G and robotics technologies into their own plant – optimizing their operation to include enhancements like real-time asset tracking with high-accuracy indoor positioning and new video analytics- based applications for improved site safety and security.
Automated manufacturing floors employing mobile robots that interact with different modules require robust and low latency transfers of data. And that’s why 5G is the best option.
“Reliable, high-performance network connectivity is at the heart of digital transformation,” Gerard said. “High-performance 5G networks can be combined with other Industry 4.0 technologies – such as digital twins, data analytics, IoT [Internet of Things], and AI – to build a smart, flexible, and sustainable manufacturing ecosystem.”
The results of Industry 4.0 digitalization speak for themselves.
In a recently conducted ABI Research/ Nokia survey of 1000 manufacturers globally, 71 per cent of respondents indicated their digitalization strategy had not been impacted by the global pandemic, and they were either able to accelerate or stick with their Industry 4.0 digital transformation plans.
Not only that, but manufacturers also reported significant impacts to their operations, including improved productivity (28 per cent), maintaining business continuity (24 per cent), adapting to remote work (20 per cent), adapting to supply chain changes (17 per cent) and a further 11 per cent noting “other benefits”.
In today’s manufacturing environment, reduction of human labour in operations means reduced costs, greater speed and efficiency, and reduced safety risks – not only because fewer human errors means fewer dangers to others in high-intensity environments, but also because the experience of the pandemic has hammered home the need for correct social distancing procedures.
And by freeing up human labour on the manufacturing floor from tasks that can be automated and digitalized, that human labour can be redeployed to tasks that require the creative and lateral thinking skills of which only humans are capable.
“A big part of what we do is empower workers by bringing them the knowledge they need, when they need it, and coordinating and automating tasks that they don’t need to be concerned with,” Gerard said.
“In addition to its role in communicating from machine to machine, 5G-based operations allow data to be shared in real time with workers who can assess that data and make more informed decisions because of it. This might be information that workers can use to identify areas of opportunity for better productivity, or to identify potential safety risks, or even incorporating interactive and accessible training modules that expedite worker education and upskilling.”
As well as creating an effective internal ecosystem for a manufacturing operation, Gerard adds that a crucial component of ensuring the success of Industry 4.0 digitalization is having an ecosystem of collaboration between technology partners.
“Manufacturers looking to deploy Industry 4.0 technologies should look for vendors with a big partner ecosystem that can also give them the confidence to provide close long-term customer support,” he said. “At Nokia – we have that ecosystem.”
With digitalization starting to take centre stage on the production floor, manufacturers wondering where to begin need to look no further.
Because of 5G’s high performance and its ability to seamlessly interconnect all Industry 4.0 technologies, implementation of 5G is not only at the heart of digital transformation in manufacturing, but the perfect place to start digital transformation.
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