Connecting manufacturers to the future: How 5G is changing the manufacturing landscape
Release time：2024-09-02click：0
Today’s ever-changing operational needs are placing increasing demands on data-intensive technologies. At the same time, existing wireless network protocols are not entirely suitable for providing everything modern manufacturers need. The increasing deployment of fifth-generation cellular wireless technology (5G) will enable manufacturers and their employees to embrace a more creative future.
5G will usher in faster speeds, greater throughput and lower latency. The new network specification also promises greater reliability, extended battery life for connected devices and support for massive device connectivity. Not only will these network features combine to transform current manufacturing activities, but 5G will also be a catalyst for innovation. 5G will empower workers throughout factories in a variety of ways, helping to support the transformation and upgrading of global manufacturing.
This article will explore how manufacturers view the capabilities of 5G and their plans to take advantage of the unique potential of 5G connectivity in homes. 5G is a key factor in defining the next generation of manufacturing. With the help of 5G, manufacturers will be able to better improve product quality, optimize work processes, and provide new products and services to internal members and external customers.
Therefore, the combined power of 5G and manufacturing has broad implications. Nearly all manufacturers believe 5G connectivity is important to the overall future of their business. Crucially, the faster 5G technology is deployed into manufacturing, the more competitive manufacturers will be; an overwhelming majority of respondents said the speed of 5G deployment will have a positive impact on their ability to compete globally. Manufacturers’ adoption rates of 5G, and what they can achieve with this transformative technology, may increasingly define the competitive landscape and, therefore, manufacturing more broadly.
Key Overview
5G will help manufacturers adopt existing ways of doing business.
• Ninety percent of manufacturers believe that using 5G in their facilities will help existing ways of doing business (92%) and will further advance existing processes (92%) 88%).
5G will drive new processes and create new business opportunities for manufacturers.
• The creation of new processes and services is a particularly important result of 5G deployment. In addition to what manufacturers are currently doing in their facilities, ninety percent expect the utilization of 5G to lead to the creation of new processes (88%) and the creation of new businesses (86%).
5G will help changeSupply chain and factory operations.
• Manufacturers expect 5G to have a significant impact on many aspects of factory operations. Four out of five manufacturers say 5G technology is important for inventory tracking within their facilities (83%), facility security (81%), and warehousing and logistics (81%). Additionally, three-quarters of manufacturers say 5G will also be important for inspection (76%) and assembly (76%) activities, and seven in 10 say packaging (72%) and employee training (71%) tasks will Benefit from deploying 5G to manufacturing.
• Manufacturers also report that 5G will impact specific applications on the shop floor, including equipment monitoring (89%), safety programs that analyze sensor data in real time (87%) and employee safety (86% %). An overwhelming majority of manufacturers also report that 5G will help with remote analytics to support real-time decision-making (84%), condition-based remote monitoring for predictive maintenance (84%), asset tracking (83%) and preventive maintenance (82%) %) ).
5G will drive cost savings for manufacturers.
• Nearly all manufacturers expect to see some level of cost savings from the direct impact of 5G wireless connectivity on machines and equipment (93%). On average, manufacturers can expect cost savings of approximately 38%.
5G will increase the productivity of machines and workers.
• Nearly all manufacturers hope to improve machine (94%) and worker (93%) productivity by implementing 5G. On average, manufacturers expect equipment productivity to increase by approximately 42% and worker productivity to increase by 41%.
5G promises to improve many manufacturing activities that rely on network connectivity.
• Compared to current connectivity technologies, two-thirds (65%) of manufacturers surveyed said 5G would be better at improving efficiency, with more than half believing 5G Will provide better quality and service (56%) and greater flexibility (53%). Additionally, two-fifths believe 5G will be beneficial as it is associated with enhanced security (45%) and improved competitiveness (41%), and a third believe it will reduce delivery times ( 35%) and lower costs (32%).
• When askedA range of manufacturing activities, manufacturers report that 5G will make all activities easier. Notably, production line reconfiguration is considered the most difficult manufacturing activity using current technology and is expected to see the greatest improvements in “ease of use” when using 5G technology. Manufacturers also expect that the utilization of 5G will drive significant improvements in remote control of devices, utilization of augmented reality/virtual reality (AR/VR) applications, utilization of mobile robots and autonomous guided vehicles, and automation.
The number one driver for manufacturers to adopt 5G is the ability to monitor quality throughout the entire production process.
• More than half of manufacturers also report that improved machine productivity (53%) will drive 5G adoption.
Why is 5G important to manufacturers?
Manufacturers are always looking for ways to improve operational performance and build greater resiliency into their processes. One promising potential is the expanded deployment of 5G connectivity and the attendant services and opportunities that will come from pervasive and ubiquitous connectivity.
It’s important to realize that 5G connectivity is fundamentally different from its predecessors. While the naming convention may suggest that 5G is just a linear extension of previous cellular networks, 5G is an important step beyond 4G. It's widely believed that 5G will deliver better and faster mobile broadband, but nothing more. Virtually every iteration of cellular network technology has unique features and characteristics, thereby ushering in entirely new use cases. This is especially true with 5G. 2G networks provide massive mobile voice communications. 3G networks introduced basic mobile broadband capabilities. 4G networks enable mobile streaming of graphically rich content. Each iteration connected a wider and more diverse set of objects and brought exponential growth in mobile traffic data.
5G has unique properties and attributes that will define its disruptive characteristics. These include high data rates, higher system capacity, reduced latency and massive device connectivity. Commercial 5G deployments will expand network possibilities beyond any previous cellular network technology. 5G is a technology paradigm shift, not just an extension of existing technologies.
5G’s unique characteristics will have a huge impact on manufacturing and the industrial economy. High data volumes will enable augmented and virtual reality to be delivered over mobile networks, ushering in 8K video capabilities and replacing fixed broadband, meaning more connections can be made in more placesobject. Low latency supports mission-critical applications such as remote mining, traffic control, holograms and real-time factory control. Massive device connectivity will change how and what is measured through applications such as smart meters, logistics tracking and smart biometrics. The reliable and resilient nature of 5G networks will enable autonomous vehicles, the ability to control mobile robots in real time, and broader reliability of drones.
The design goals of the 5G standard are completely different from previous cellular networks. 5G removes barriers that existed in previous networks, allowing it to offer new services that were not previously possible.
What is 5G?
About 50 years ago, on a street in midtown Manhattan, Motorola engineer Martin Cooper made the first cellular phone call. While the wireless revolution began with voice communications, each iteration of cellular networks represented a leap forward as wireless networks adapted to another defining technological revolution: the rise of the Internet. In doing so, each major generation of wireless technology since that pivotal phone call has been defined by the ever-increasing data capacity and broader range of services that can be delivered over cellular networks:
< div> • 1G (1979): Voice calls
• 2G (1991): Digital voice, text messaging, dial-up data speeds
• 3G (1998 ): Email, pictures, the web
• 4G (2009): Streaming video
5G represents the fifth major milestone in wireless communications . It brings a number of features, including the following:
Speed – 5G networks can peak at speeds 20 times higher than 4G networks, with even higher throughput possible in the future.
Latency - 5G networks can send "round trip" data (sending data to a destination and back) in less than 10 milliseconds, and this number may drop to 5 in the future Below milliseconds.
Capacity – 5G networks can capture data from hundreds of thousands of sensors per square mile.
Reliable – 5G networks can achieve “five nines” (99.999%) reliability, making them an excellent choice for mission-critical applications.
Relay - Even when devices are traveling hundreds of kilometers per hour, 5G networks can seamlessly pass data to each other, ensuring strong connectivity for high-speed applications.
Efficiency – Remote sensor device applications connected via 5G low-power connections can run on battery power for nearly a decade.
5G provides three main types of communication services or use cases: enhanced mobile broadband services (eMBB), massive machine type communications (mMTC) and ultra-reliable, low-latency communications (URLLC) ：
eMBB improves upon what we typically think of: Cellular service: Quick access to data from devices such as smartphones, laptops, or vehicles for applications such as streaming video. Initial 5G deployments focus on this service.
mMTC brings 5G support to low-power devices such as sensors and other smart devices that may need to be used in the field or factory for years on a single battery charge. It builds on LTE standard support for such devices.
URLLC is suitable for devices that require a very sensitive data connection (for example, communication between two self-driving cars seeking to avoid a collision on the highway). 5G NR (New Radio) supports URLLC. As a result, it enables higher performance than LTE and is key to realizing the full potential of 5G.
5G is also often associated with initiatives that are not intrinsically part of the standards but are highly complementary. One such example is MEC (Multiple Access, or Mobile Edge Computing). MEC is designed to improve the performance of high-bandwidth, low-latency applications such as shared augmented reality or cloud-based gaming.
MEC allows for more processing at the edge, which means less need to move data from machines to the cloud and back in the process of performing data-intensive activities. In this way, manufacturers can leverage MEC to reduce latency for certain applications and also prioritize mission-critical data. Manufacturers will use MEC to control robots, drones and other devices that require low latency, high reliability, greater privacy and security, so itTheir performance is not hampered by the round-trip time of data from machine to cloud.
Since we are in the early stages of the 5G transition, we can make some comparisons with the early 4G networks that have been widely used over the past decade: Like 4G, which has gotten faster over the past few years as standards improved, 5G is being rolled out in phases and will get faster in the coming years. Its progress is defined by a version created by a governing international body focused on covering the many technical details of the evolution of cellular standards. Release 15 defines the initial 5G standards for 2019. Versions 16 and 17, focused on improvements such as efficiency and power management, were approved in 2020, with version 18 scheduled for approval in 2021.
• In addition, as with 4G, it will take some time for operators to achieve widespread coverage. While national operators have made good progress building out their networks since 2019, we can expect improvements in coverage and speeds in 2021 and beyond. Even so, 5G is being adopted by carriers around the world faster than 4G.
• Telecommunications company Ericsson estimates that 5G will cover 15% of the global population by the end of 2020, up from 5% at the end of 2019. Furthermore, they estimate this will grow to 60% by 2026, making 5G the fastest deployed technology in the history of mobile communications.
• Just as 4G networks require devices such as smartphones to be 4G capable to take full advantage of network speeds, so too will 5G networks. In 2020, nearly every major U.S. smartphone manufacturer released at least one 5G smartphone. Other device makers have also announced 5G-enabled laptops, tablets and hotspots.
5G is not the only wireless networking technology to see major updates or support announcements recently, although others are focused on different solutions and applications. They include the following:
• Wi-Fi 6e: Wi-Fi 6e represents a generational leap in speed and network congestion management compared to previous generations. Recently, however, the technology has expanded into a new frequency band that offers more capacity than the previous bands combined. While this should result in the best Wi-Fi performance we've seen to date, Wi-Fi can replace 5G alternatives since 5G is not available. However, it remains focused on local networks and cannot match the range or device density capabilities of 5G.
• Bluetooth 5.2: The latest version of the popular standard for connecting smartphones to headphones and other peripherals will have improvements in energy consumption and can be used for precise object location over short distances.
• UWB: Like Bluetooth, ultra-wideband can be used for precise target positioning over short distances. Leading smartphone manufacturers are now integrating UWB into their smartphones.
These short-range technologies are highly complementary to 5G and should be widely supported in smartphones and other devices in the coming years.
To be continued...
