5G Enables Digital Transformation of Manufacturing

In the wake of the pandemic, the cost of labour and raw and auxiliary materials has been rising, putting pressure on profit margins in the manufacturing industry. In response, manufacturers are looking to implement lean management concepts to improve production efficiency and quality, increase customer satisfaction and boost revenues.

Advanced digital technologies are now enabling manufacturing plants to become increasingly automated and efficient. Software can, for example, automatically monitor and control vehicles and machinery, enforce safety and security rules, collect real-time production data and perform quality control.

Hotel Star wanted to make much greater use of digital technologies in its carton manufacturing plant in Ningbo, in China. But many of the planned use cases, such as being able to monitor and control the status and location of portable equipment within its factory in real-time, depend on flexible and reliable connectivity and the company’s existing network wasn’t up to the task.

The Hotel Star factory has a wide variety of devices and machines that need to be connected to a diverse group of services, with low latency and high reliability. In addition, it needs to interconnect the factory network with its existing cloud-based big data platform, and seamlessly support the deployment of third-party applications, such as machine vision.

To meet these requirements cost-effectively, Hotel Star worked with China Mobile and ZTE to replace its traditional Wi-Fi-based network with a private 5G network, which can support real-time transmission of large amounts of data to the local data centre, while improving data collection efficiency, reducing wiring and maintenance costs, and increasing flexibility. To implement Hotel Star’s 5G network, China Mobile integrated network, cloud and applications into a base station using ZTE NodeEngine Pro solution. The solution interconnects internal equipment in the factory, including both production and monitoring devices.

Hotel Star is now using the 5G network and NodeEngine Pro to support a variety of advanced services, such as automated guided vehicles (AGVs), data collection, smart security protection, and image recognition. For example, Hotel Star’s connected cameras automatically inspect the quality of packaging box printing. The 5G network is used to convey the images to an image recognition system in the local data centre. Hotel Star says the accuracy of machine vision quality inspection has reached more than 97%. “Replacing human eyes with machines can effectively improve accuracy and release manpower,” says Lu Yanbo, deputy general manager of Hotel Star.

Hotel Star has also deployed a self-service portal, which enables the factory’s managers to visualise and reconfigure operations in the plant, according to a specific production plan, and reduce maintenance costs. In this way, the portal provides managers with fine-grained control over the resources in its factory. Following the move to 5G, Hotel Star says the equipment utilisation rate has improved by more than 20%, warehouse management efficiency has increased by 50%, and quality inspection efficiency has improved by 80%. With the reduction in manual operations, such as production data entry, Hotel Star has also been able to cut labour costs by 30%. At the same time, with the help of accurate data, overall production costs have fallen by 20%.

Manufacturers have traditionally relied on staff to enforce safety and security rules, but this approach is inefficient. The 5G connectivity has enabled Hotel Star to create a virtual fence, which sounds an alarm when objects or personnel enter a high-risk area by mistake. The virtual fence can also be configured to automatically halt production machines in the event of an intrusion. The virtual fence is supplemented by a high-altitude monitoring camera positioned at the top of Hotel Star’s warehouse. The camera transmits real-time video through the 5G network to monitor the overall situation of the factory.

The network architecture used in the Hotel Star project is highly replicable and extensible, according to China Mobile, thus providing valuable reference and strong technical support for the transformation of other factories.

The new integrated solution encompasses ready-made functional packages that businesses can select to support various industrial applications. For example, these packages can be used to expand wireless positioning, enhance quality of service, implement cross layer optimization and other functions.

China Mobile plans to deploy an advanced cloud-based programmable logic controller (PLC) service to replace the various manual control bus interfaces that are widely used in manufacturing. Through the “embedded deployment” of relevant apps, China Mobile is aiming to greatly improve work efficiency and reduce costs. “At the same time, the endogenous function provided by the integrated solution can provide deterministic service quality assurance for PLC operation, fully meeting the needs of real-time remote control,” explains Bai Gang. “The distributed computing power of it can be uniformly scheduled to flexibly match the flexible production demand.”

The widespread deployment of the new integrated solution will help more enterprises to complete the transformation from “extensive enterprises to intensive enterprises”, according to Deng Wei of China Mobile. “By copying the construction mode of 5G fully connected factories, it will complete the intelligent upgrading of the whole process of production and manufacturing, maximise resource allocation efficiency, and construct a new business form of 5G-enabled industrial manufacturing.”