With the Industrial Internet of Things, private networks create the environment for remote monitoring, analytics, and control of Industry 4.0, using data generated by pervasive sensors. Enormous volumes of data generated by the Internet of Things are analyzed to find performance improvement opportunities and achieve them by reconfiguring factories without human intervention. 5G private networks provide the bandwidth to process massive data from equipment, devices, business processes, vehicles, and low-latency controls for their coordinated operations.
The growing demand for customized products with short shelf lives and new products spawned by new technologies create a need to frequently restructure production systems with short lead times. The trend crystallized when Covid-19 paralyzed factories, unable to use human workers to operate them.
Real-time networking and V2V communications on the factory floors with 5G private networks are related planks in Industry 4.0 system. Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) and mobile robots, equipped with optical sensors, receive radio signals to avoid collisions and synchronize their movements. In addition, video monitoring and analytics ensure coordinated orchestration of each mobile asset’s movements. Digital Twins, a virtual representation of a facility, provide a snapshot view of the factory for efficient deployment of resources across factory floors or restructuring when the product mix changes.
Private networks support the Industrial Internet of Things for automation
Digital performance management is a valuable outcome of flexible automation of Industry 4.0. Siemens, for example, has combined its industrial 5G private network with its digital twin technology, which has the virtual representation of its product lifecycle data and manufacturing operations. The product life cycle information overlayed with data streaming from sensors embedded in its modular production processes uncovers opportunities for optimization at a granular process level. Furthermore, the flexibility of modular designs of production processes allows them to respond to digital instructions to adapt to market changes. As a result, time saved with private 5G cellular networks is estimated to be 70 to 80 percent compared to cabled installations for applications like collaborative robotics.
Flexibility is a vital asset for a company like BMW, which offers a hundred options for each car and more than forty models. Altogether, BMW can configure its new vehicles in 2100 different ways. To manage the complexity of such a degree of diversity, BMW collaborates with Nvidia using its Omniverse Enterprise platform to simulate product designs, production processes, and workflows for new launches of cars. The physical world is abstracted as virtual reality to simulate workflows to optimize them before launch. In addition, 5G private networks process enormous data and virtual content volumes for a smooth experience in this context.
Covid-19 has been a rude awakening for supply chains with endemic shortages caused by disruptions precipitated by unanticipated events. Increasingly, the manufacturing industry is looking to end-to-end supply chain visibility informed by data flowing from sensors into Digital Twins. The digital twins can anticipate failures in the supply chain and simulate alternative ways to adapt with short lead times. Private networks provide security, an overriding consideration for interconnected supply chain systems sharing data,
Interconnected systems in Industry 4.0 have a low tolerance for downtime, which they want to eliminate by continuous monitoring and pre-emptive maintenance. Siemens, for example, collaborates with SAP which aggregates the condition data of equipment and manufacturing processes to anticipate failure and prevent downtime. The equipment suppliers view the data on a digital twin that displays signs of stress and predicts breakdowns. As a result, real-time condition monitoring reduces lead time in production processes by 35% to 50%.
Private Networks for innovation with Industrial Internet of Things
Low-latency private networks afford the completion of time-sensitive tasks, with precision, for completing automated tasks. For example, moving AGVs play a vital role in picking objects and moving them across factory floors without colliding with other objects in their way. Precision in positioning and coordinating their movements requires transmitting radio signals with very low latencies unobstructed by objects in their way, identifying AGVs, and executing time-sensitive operations on them. Qualcomm introduced Time-Sensitive Networks (TSN) technologies and precise positioning of AGVs recently to work in Industry 4.0 environments.
Ericsson commercializes its turnkey Industry 4.0 solution with 5G cellular networking technology to integrate Product Life Cycle Management and automation on factory floors. The first deployments are with Volvo Construction Equipment with private network services from Telia and Atlas Copco’s Sickla site with network services from Telenor. In addition, PLM solutions are available from PTC/Rockwell, including IoT and AR, Siemens Teamcenter, which includes Mindsphere IoT and Mendix low-code platform, and Dassault’s 3DExperience/Delmia.
The objective of these solutions is the capability of design-for-manufacture by PLM companies who receive data about operations from the Internet of Things in automated manufacturing plants. Digital Twins use the data for simulations augmented with XReality technologies. Artificial intelligence is essential to optimize the traffic generated by such solutions in a private 5G network.
Conclusion
The Industrial Internet of Things will be the keystone to reaping value from automated industrial operations. The data generated by the IIoT will feed the analytics that increases efficiencies taking advantage of flexible industrial computerized processes. Digital Twins will do the simulations to decide how to increase efficiencies and profitability from using data in industrial operations. In addition, the integration of PLM and industrial processes will remove one of the significant barriers to the rapid development of new products to respond to market fluidity created by the customization of products and new products spawned by new technologies.
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