5G will have a Similar Impact on Manufacturing as Electricity had

Customers are demanding an ever-increasing variety of increasingly complex products with product cycles shortening at the same time. This confronts manufacturing with the dilemma of having to increase their flexibility while production processes become more complicated and complex at the same time.

Smart Manufacturing, Industry 4.0, Digital Enterprise, or Factory of the Future are the headlines of concepts aiming to address these challenges of increased customization at faster product cycles. And 5G is considered as a vital enabler in many of them.

As the 5G technology itself becomes increasingly available, real-life implementations are getting started. The automotive industry seems to be in the lead here, as testified by Ford as well as Toyota recently announcing to set up private 5G networks in their Essex and Fukuoka plants respectively.

When compared to other wireless technologies, 5G is more robust and is optimized for low latencies, i.e. the time that is needed to send information from one machine to another and to receive an answer back. As such, 5G is a viable alternative to connect production machines with each other. No longer will there be a need to connect manufacturing robots with each other with fixed wires or less reliable WiFi for them to communicate in real time. Nor, given the inherent robustness of 5G, will there be a need to worry for the connection to be lost. The data rate and reliability of 5G is comparable to wired connectivity.

This will allow product lines to be re-assembled to changing demand more flexibly and more easily. All the machines across the whole shop floor and beyond will be able to communicate with each other reliably and in real time. Indeed, there will be less of a need for production and assembly lines in the physical sense, as the machines will be able to communicate wherever they might be. And it will also allow employees, autonomous robots, or 3D printers and other machine tools to communicate in real-time with edge computers on-site, performing analytical, augmented reality and artificial intelligence tasks for them.

Some say that all of this will have a similar revolutionary effect on manufacturing like when, at the turn from the 19th to the 20th century, the steam engine that powered all machines in a factory was gradually replaced by multiple electric motors to power the machine tools individually. It was this move that allowed more flexible factory outlays that allowed Henry Ford to set up his assembly line for the Tin Lizzie in the first place. Thereby dramatically increasing the productivity of car manufacturing and allowing him to pay factory workers much higher wages.

Sources
Ford First Carmaker to Sign Up for Private 5G Network in UK, Financial Times, 25 June 2020
5G in Manufacturing, What’s Here and What’s to Come, Tech Briefings Magazine, February 1, 2020
5G and Smart Manufacturing, A New Era, Matt Behringer, Jabil Inc., February 7, 2019
Five Ways that 5G will Revolutionize Manufacturing, McKinsey & Company, October 18, 2019
Why Didn’t Electricity Immediately Change Manufacturing, Tim Harford, BBC World Service, 21 August 2017

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