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Manufacturing Marketing Manager at Nokia
Overcoming Market Challenges with Private Wireless and Industrial Edge
Paul Downey
Competitive pressures, customer demand and the pace of technology change have long created complexities for the electronic manufacturing industry. Now manufacturers are being hit with rising prices, raw material shortages, supply chain volatility and increased regulatory as well as environmental pressure, but demand for new technology remains strong.
Consequently, many are turning to digitalization. By collecting and processing operational technology (OT) data and using it to enable Industry 4.0 use cases, such as autonomous robots, electronics manufacturers want to overcome these challenges while increasing productivity and flexibility, decreasing costs and achieving sustainability goals.
A Complex, Resilient Private Wireless Ecosystem
Such digitalization relies on an ecosystem of predictable and secure asset connectivity, industrial edge processing for use case data processing and robust industrial devices that meet the needs of the enterprise OT side. The first consideration should be flexible wireless asset connectivity to give a full overview of the plant’s operation based on real time data. In addition, in these fast-changing production environments, it is time consuming and costly to regularly reconfigure wired connections to machines and test equipment. Wireless connectivity is a must.
While Wi-Fi has traditionally been used for wireless connectivity, as digitalization gathers pace, manufacturers will need more. Metal interference to Wi-Fi signals and lack of mobility support will mean autonomous mobile robots (AMR) are impacted by patchy coverage and loss of connectivity. And, as more assets get connected, capacity and latency will suffer.
"By collecting and processing operational technology (OT) data and using it to enable Industry 4.0 use cases, electronics manufacturers want to overcome challenges while increasing productivity and flexibility, decreasing costs and achieving sustainability goals."
Private wireless networks can meet the demands of the ultra-connected factory. They offer superior coverage, predictable performance and security, as well as dramatically lower latency compared to Wi-Fi, particularly using real-time industrial edge data processing. With pervasive private wireless coverage across the factory, AMRs, for example, remain connected and can access layouts and share real-time navigation data, to traverse the floor more efficiently and increase productivity flow.
Real-world factory floor deployments that have leveraged wireless asset tracking to benefit from lean manufacturing concepts, result in up to 90% reductions in lead times and factory floor layout changes.
Smart Manufacturing Enables New Cost Efficiencies
For many manufacturers, cost efficiency is a key driver for digitalization, as quality and productivity issues have huge impacts on profit.
While autonomous equipment is now being developed incorporating private wireless connectivity, existing assets are more likely to be unconnected. Working with technology providers who offer robust industrial user equipment such as industrial field routers and dongles pre-tested in the hardest environments, they can quickly and reliably connect their existing assets’ PLCs to the private wireless environment or directly add sensors to even older machines and get the benefits of fast digitalization of legacy machines.
Using digital twin applications that display and process these real time data, they can be alerted to potential issues and rectify them before productivity is impacted, or tweak and enhance processes for productivity gains.
Quality, too, can be enhanced using applications integrated in resilient private wireless networks, such as those that enable real-time remote video monitoring and alerts. Any anomalies in the production process will trigger alerts to teams so they can rectify issues quickly to limit raw material wastage and enable zero fault manufacturing. With greater reliance on robots and autonomous processes, zero-touch handling is enabled too, increasing accuracy and decreasing waste for dramatic productivity gains.
Reduce the Impact of Supply Chain Volatility
Using sensors to connect assets, the smart factory will offer greater visibility into a manufacturer’s inventory allowing them to better adapt to fluctuations in raw material availability as well as stock levels. For example, as AMRs access stock, levels will be adjusted automatically. By integrating current raw material lead times into workflows, procurement can be alerted to the need to source more to minimize the impact of supply chain volatility.
Manufacturers with integrated logistics companies can benefit from clear visibility of the asset journey and, as their digitalization journey continues, can incorporate greater automation into logistics processes too. Others can better integrate external logistic company data into their operations. Accurate asset tracking will also reduce issues and costs associated with misplaced assets or theft.
The Path to Digitalization
Electronics manufacturers should work with technology providers who offer the most comprehensive private wireless solutions, incorporating a robust mix of connectivity, on-premises edge processing, devices and applications. Providers that have gained a real understanding of the needs of the industry will be able to simplify the path to digitalization and help manufacturers benefit more quickly in a further wide range of areas such as worker collaboration, optimized internal material flow efficiency, production quality and emission reductions.
