The implementation of private 5G and 4G networks in the manufacturing sector is helping manufacturers to embrace the digital transformation and also to boost productivity, reduce certain costs and increase safety for workers, Catherine Gull, head of business development at Cellnex Telecom, said during a presentation at the Private Network European Forum—available on demand here.
“What 5G enables, no other technology enables. It enables the transitions when you have autonomous guided vehicles, natural transitions from one location to another location, which are more difficult to come by with other types of systems. It enables things to move around. I mean, inherently 5G is mobility, which means anything like an autonomous guided vehicle that goes indoors and outdoors, it enables that and it also enables business agility, how do you change your factory or manufacturing plant to adjust to things like COVID. When we had COVID, there were a lot of adjustments that had to be made to manufacturing plants, both in how they worked and what they were working on.
Gull noted that plants that were manufacturing tractors needed to be transformed in plants manufacturing oxygen machines for example. “Technologies like 5G actually helped to enable that with private networks on top of that.”
Cellnex sees customer-centric private network deployments
The executive also said that another trend that Cellnex is seeing in the private networks space is that deployments are customer-centric, very responsive to customer needs. “Because private 5G is really tailored around what customers’ needs, where they need it and when they need it, you can really adapt your factory to how your customers are requiring things from you,” Gull said.
“Private 5G and private networks are shaping change. What does that mean? They’re really focused around accelerating and tracking and managing sustainability, whether it’s energy usage, safety of people in manufacturing plant. Private 5G is agnostic and it essentially can connect to anything. And it really enables hyper automation. It’s taking people out of those very dangerous areas. One of the most dangerous things about a manufacturing plant or a logistics plant, are the forklifts. Actually people get hurt using forklifts. So what private networks enable us to do is take those people out of the dangerous sites.”
Regarding the benefits of the implementation of private networks, the executive mentioned the case of a German auto manufacturer who deployed a private LTE network at its plant. Gull noted that the company found that there was a 24% increase in revenue from using private networks in 2021 and a 6%, decrease in spending from using private networks in the factory. “And they really did sort of cost of operations, looking at upgrading the factory and being able to be more efficient, more cost effective, more reliable, and have more people where they need and less people where they don’t.”
Key use cases enabled by private 5G
The executive highlighted that two use cases enabled by 5G private networks such as autonomous guided vehicles and condition based monitoring are helping manufacturers to boost profitability and decrease their costs. Gull stated that autonomous guided vehicles enable manufacturers to do certain tasks with more efficient in a more safe way.
“A German manufacturer found that they had 29% of operational cost savings over five years by implementing autonomous mobile robots and autonomous guided vehicles,” the executive said, adding that condition based monitoring, which is a maintenance strategy that allows manufacturers to monitor the actual condition of an asset and extracting information to understand the machines’ actual wear, degradation and if any relevant change has occurred, also helps factories to improve efficiencies and reduce costs.
“[With condition based monitoring] you know exactly the condition, the heat and the stress factor on equipment. Private 5G enables manufacturers to gather all of that data, put it into an AI system and get some intelligence back. So you can actually manage your factory in a more effective way.”
The executive also highlighted that the potential deployment of 5G private networks or 4G LTE private networks will depend on the customer’s specific needs. “It’s not always a 5G conversation. It’s really a conversation about what the customer requires, and fitting the right solution for them. Sometimes it is 5G, sometimes it’s simply 4G LTE, it really depends on the requirements of the customer, and also the future requirements.”
Gull also stressed that many of the current deployments are based on 4G LTE technology with a path to 5G.
For more insights on private networks, check out the Private Networks European Forum.
