5G and the Future of Smart Manufacturing

Flexibility at speed

In the new world of smart manufacturing and intelligent facilities, flexibility is king and 5G is its enabler. Every manufacturing company, regardless of size, resources, industry, or market, is looking to be more flexible and more agile to adapt to uncertain and fast-changing market conditions.

Here, flexibility refers to technology and systems that can be adapted or reconfigured without needing new development, for example refitting a machine cell or a production line to be able to produce a different product. Agility meanwhile concerns implementing new systems into existing systems without disruption. The value of these features in production is to enable more fluid operations that can deal with change, demand or flux easily. By embracing flexible and agile network infrastructure, manufacturers can benefit from faster time to market and greater efficiencies regarding end-product output.

5G supports these goals through super-fast communications that allow manufacturers to modify production processes quickly, even enabling changes to be made during production processes. When manufacturers can utilize fast communications from either human-to-machine, or machine-to-machine, they will be able to get the most out of their technology, without fear of communications dropping, connections being lost or delays in messaging occurring.

Combined with cloud enabled technologies, 5G not only has the capacity to impact communications, but also allow manufacturers visibility over all their key productions processes. After all, there is no way to have real-time control without real-time data, and data driven insights.

More reliable operations

In standard factory floor operations, the perceived benefits of using wired connections are that they are robust and reliable. Meanwhile, many manufacturers have transitioned towards Wi-Fi communications due to the functional benefits of reducing the number of wires in an industrial setting. Both options, however, have their drawbacks.

Wires on a factory floor setting can be dangerous and lack the required mobility and flexibility to adapt to unforeseen changes or situations as required. While, when using Wi-Fi, moving between one antenna to a second antenna can cause disconnections to occur and lead to communications being dropped and the risk of information being lost. Neither of these options offer the levels of speed and reliability enabled by 5G. This combination of attributes makes 5G an ideal choice for manufacturers to implement, especially for business-critical solutions that require continuous connections and rely on accurate, up-to-date data.

These benefits extend beyond just the factory floor. 5G has the potential to support the entire supply chain by enabling applications such as track and trace, which provides live location updates and reliable tracking information. 5G is therefore a way to not only protect business-critical operations but support the wider ecosystem a manufacturer operates within.

Building a more connected manufacturing environment

With 5G fully operational in a factory floor setting, manufacturers can build a more collaborative, integrated working environment. One where data can flow across the network seamlessly and safely. When paired with flexible capabilities that are built directly into manufacturing operations, disparate parts of a facility – or even geographically separate locations themselves - can communicate directly.

This means workers on the factory floor, operators in different site locations, or even different countries can communicate quickly to drive efficiency benefits, streamline operations, and transform their manufacturing plant into an intelligent, smart factory.