Ericsson USA 5G Smart Factory

Industries are driving hard today to make factories smarter and more efficient, processes less wasteful, production lines more flexible and productivity higher. That means making the most of every opportunity to extend machine life through predictive maintenance, support rapid material handling, monitor every detail on the shop floor, and leverage the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). Smart, secure wireless connectivity is the red thread that enables the realization of Industry 4.0.

Energy monitoring and management

The Challenge

• Buildings, including factories, use 40 percent of our energy and 70 percent of our electricity.
• Lack of visibility into energy consumption at the device-level prevents optimization strategies.

The Solution

• Enables monitoring of all energy appliances and ability to turn them on/off based on rules.
• Gathers data out of the building management systems (BMS) for tracking in the data lake and shows real-time energy consumption on big screen

Environmental monitoring within the factory

The Challenge

• Environmental factors are impacting industry output; for instance, a day of with temperatures above 90 degrees can cost a manufacturing plant up to USD 10,000 in output and increased waste.
• It is difficult to understand exactly how the environment (e.g., humidity) impacts the production/working environment for employees.

The Solution

• Collect environmental monitoring data, such as humidity and temperature, from across the factory floor and store it in the data lake for correlation purposes.

AR for remote support

The Challenge

• With nearly 27 percent of U.S. manufacturing workers set to retire over the next ten years, it will be increasingly difficult to complete certain repairs due to lack of on-site expertise and specialized knowledge.
• The cost is high for maintenance labor maintained at each site. Flying the vendor out for repairs is also costly.

The Solution

• Augmented reality headsets and smartphones used by maintenance teams to troubleshoot and repair equipment by:
• Connecting to globally distributed Ericsson support, or third-party vendor support teams.
• Getting step-by-step, system generated and knowledge-basepowered guidance in real-time

Mobile alerting and escalations

The Challenge

• Providers/material set-up assistant get no alert when there is an issue (e.g., material magazine is empty).
• Immediate action is not possible if a provider is not at the production line computer, leading to production loss.
• No guidance on immediate next step is available to provider.

The Solution

• Smart devices can provide real-time alerts or critical alarms to provider and suggest immediate workflow actions.

Putting the “smart” in a smart factory

One of the most interesting deployments is Ericsson's recently opened USA 5G Smart Factory in Lewisville, Texas, where 5G radios are manufactured. This LEED Gold and Zero Carbon certified sustainable factory runs on a 5G private network solution based on a Network on Wheels. Thanks to the fast, low-latency network, the autonomous guided vehicles that deliver parts to the various assembly locations no longer have to follow a painted line on the floor. They can now talk to each other. In addition, a technician can look at any aspect of the production with augmented reality glasses, untethered, and make adjustments as needed.