The highly popular Manufacturing Summit returned to MWC Barcelona at the Connected Industries stage in February, 2024. We welcomed industry experts from the Manufacturing and Telco sector and discussed a range of topics, including the adoption of 5G technologies, the industrial workplace, deploying smart factories and the rise of Industrial AI. With technology on the rise, and manufacturing at the heart of everything we do, you don’t want to miss this! You can catch all the summit videos below

Our Sessions

 

Manufacturing Summit: Scaling Up: Is Manufacturing ready to fully embrace Private Wireless?

Time: 10:00 – 10:30 (CET)

In recent years, the manufacturing industry has been successfully experimenting with private wireless pilots, resulting in the emergence and organic growth of an ecosystem tailored to industry needs. This session evaluates the readiness of the ecosystem to transition from pilot initiatives to widespread implementation of private wireless solutions. Is the ecosystem mature enough to move away from pilot mentality and come together to start scaling? Join Accenture’s panel of industry experts to discuss the requirements for making the leap and explore some of the key challenges that persist.

Manufacturing Summit: The lights are out, but the robots are home. Deploying the smart factory

Time: 11:00 – 12:00 (CET)

A ‘lights out’ factory is a manufacturing facility that can operate without human intervention, typically relying on automation and robotics for production, and therefore not needing the facilities that humans would require, such as lighting. The same technologies capable of running the lights out factory are also driving digital transformation across the industrial sector. Industrial Robots, Machine Vision, Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs), Internet of Things (IoT) Sensors, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning, are being deployed wirelessly with 5G technologies, to build smart factories and warehouses. The aim is to reduce cost, improve production efficiency, safety, supply chain resilience, and achieve sustainability.​

In this session, we welcome experts from across the sector to bring their experience of how to approach a smart factory deployment. What are the key factors to consider for connectivity, security and ensuring the deployment is fit for purpose?

Manufacturing Summit: Prediction or Fiction? The rise of Industrial AI

Time: 12:30 – 13:30 (CET)

Artificial intelligence has been growing in the public consciousness since the first chess-playing computer programs of the 1950’s and 60’s, and it now touches every element of our lives from recommending films, to filtering job applications, to health screening, so it’s no surprise that as the industrial sector moves towards digital transformation, AI is in the mix. ​

AI applications include machine vision for finding defects and predicting failures to prevent unscheduled downtime, as well as digital twins that simulate and optimise production processes and products, across their lifecycle. The rise of generative AI and LLMs will soon lead to new productivity gains for the manufacturing workforce. However, deploying in an industrial environment brings challenges including integration with existing infrastructure, managing data quality, and ensuring reliability when lives may rely on critical safety requirements.​

In this session, we welcome experts to share their experience on the impact that AI applications are delivering in manufacturing today and how they are shaping the industry design of tomorrow, with technologies such as IoT, machine learning, computer vision and digital twins. The session will also take a close look at the supporting infrastructure, examining how technologies such as 5G and edge computing are making Industrial AI a reality.

Manufacturing Summit: The road to manufacturing DX; are we nearly there yet?

Time: 14:30 – 15:30 (CET)

The term Industry 4.0 was coined in Germany in 2011 and describes the fourth industrial revolution powered by advances in connectivity, communications, robotics, AI, IoT, Autonomous vehicles and 5G technologies. ​

5G commercial roll out began in 2018/19, and since then enterprises are becoming increasingly aware that digital transformation requires modern network infrastructure; and mobile network operators are beginning to respond to the enterprise customer needs. Beyond operators, the broader mobile and technology ecosystem are offering parts or end-to-end private 5G solutions to enterprises driving awareness for the customer and partnership opportunities for the ecosystem. Spectrum has also been set aside in some countries with significant industrial manufacturing activity for private use, namely Japan, Germany, the US and South Korea.​

Despite an increasing demand for 5G in the enterprise sector there is still work to be done, and partnerships to be made, to design and deliver propositions to meet the needs of the industrial verticals. ​

In this session, we welcome industry experts from the Manufacturing and Telecoms sector to give a view on where we are in the adoption of 5G technologies in the sector, what’s working, and what must still be done to support the sector to achieve their industry 4.0 ambitions.

Manufacturing Summit:

Time: 16:00 – 16:30 (CET)

Dramatic forms of business evolution, technological innovation and related advances have been taking place within the context of Industry 4.0.

In recent years, the concept of Industry 5.0 has gained traction: a new paradigm in which capabilities are converging to enhance collaboration between humans and smart systems for a more sustainable and personalized industry value chain. Integration of connectivity, such as 5G and computing capabilities, together with disruptive technologies, such as AI, is vital for this transformation, addressing industries’ priorities for their business evolution.

Join us to discover how these technologies and related ecosystems are pivotal in enabling Industry to evolve into a more human-machine collaborative and highly flexible model, heralding a new era where technology amplifies human potential in manufacturing and mobility of goods.

 

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Connected Industries Manufacturing Supporting Sponsors: