Meetings to discuss issues or evaluate new elements are often held in front of the screens, Romppainen said. These screens display real-time information from the various sensors that monitor almost every process across the factory floor.
#LEARNING FACTORY PATH 4.0 CONFERENCE SERIES#
The first thing our group saw upon entering the factory was a series of large-screen TVs. That will make the whole supply chain more flexible and easier to adapt to new products.” The robotic factory “As the number of robots is increasing all the time, so is the level of automation.
#LEARNING FACTORY PATH 4.0 CONFERENCE FULL#
“With data analytics and the high level of automation, this manufacturing environment is full of innovation,” said Heikki Romppainen, head of Nokia’s Oulu factory. It’s an approach Nokia is calling the “conscious factory.” And using just 4G, executives estimate that they have automated some product lines in the Oulu factory to about 99%, with some prototyping processes remaining more manual. As it is prepared to demonstrate with its own factory, an evolutionary path will lead to 5G conversion in the next couple of years. Nokia’s message is that companies don’t need to wait for 5G to start connecting their factories.
Carriers want more time to recoup their investments on 4G even as they continue to make 5G plans, so a company like Nokia faces the delicate balancing act of encouraging greater connectivity now without undercutting 4G. Nokia executives point out that 4G networks are currently underutilized and are still rolling out in many areas. One of the more revealing elements in all of this is that the connectivity is actually running on a 4G LTE network, at least for now. “We have our own factory here,” said Jani Leskinen, head of Nokia’s research and development in Oulu. To prove this point, Nokia will be embracing many 5G principles in its Oulu factory.
As 5G networks begin to roll out, one of the most heavily hyped use cases is Industry 4.0, or the “factory of the future.” 5G proponents argue that these blazing-fast networks, which can support massive numbers of connected objects in small areas and with no latency, will allow manufacturers to use automation and data to make their facilities far more efficient.
0 kommentar(er)
