South Korea based electric power equipment company LS Electric has signed up Finnish vendor Nokia to supply an analytics-based asset management platform to local power utilities.
LS Electric, a division of Seoul-based conglomerate LS Group, wants an IoT and AI solution to enable customers to proactively manage mission-critical assets, and identify root causes for variations in performance, and better maintain or replace assets.
It has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Nokia to trial its SpaceTime asset lifecycle analytics, prior to rolling out the solution for customers. Nokia acquired California-based SpaceTime Insight in 2018, to help it develop industrial IoT applications for markets such as manufacturing, energy, logistics, transportation, and utilities.
The analytics system is geared to give utilities, like LS Electric, a single view of their operations, and drive insights from new and existing data streams flowing from connected assets and infrastructure. LS Electric wants to offer smarter risk analysis to customers using its equipment, so they can predict failures and optimise usage.
Nokia said it will extend “this synergy” to 5G-based convergence opportunities in smart city and smart factory disciplines.
Kim Young Keun, chief technology officer at LS ELECTRIC, said: “This collaboration paves the way for the development of new business cases in the field of asset performance management, as well as presenting an opportunity to engage with innovative businesses in South Korea in the era of Industry 4.0. Nokia will help us to develop a solution that provides our customers with a 360-degree view of their assets and business imperatives.”
Kevin Ahn, head of Nokia in South Korea, said: “Nokia is trusted by all major South Korean operators to deliver 5G connectivity, and we are taking that experience and local knowledge into the enterprise space. The South Korean utilities market is highly competitive and is driven by seeking operational efficiencies throughout the supply chain.
“This collaboration will allow LS Electric to expand its utility asset business and portfolio by delivering a flexible solution that can meet a variety of business case objectives. We further expect to extend this synergy to 5G-based convergence opportunities such as smart city and smart factory projects.”
Nokia has invested heavily in the past 24 months in technologies to drive industrial change, including software-defined networking for both data centre and SD-WAN applications, network automation and private LTE network technologies, distributed cloud orchestration, and advanced data streaming and analytics.
In February, it announced a similar deal with Japan-based train company and railway operator Odakyu Electric Railway to trial machine vision technology to improve safety at rail crossings. The firm has started testing at the Tamagawa Gakuenmae No.8 railroad crossing in Machida City, in Tokyo. It is using ‘scene analytics’ software from Nokia to apply machine learning to video images, to monitor the junction and detect abnormal events in real time. The work will continue through March.
