Industry 4Under the trend, manufacturers began to use digital technology to achieve more transparent control of production processes, in order to improve production efficiency, reduce production costs and provide more value to customers. The premise of industrial 4.0 is that factories have efficient connection solutions and need an intelligent, stable and secure factory network before mining the large data needed and converting them into value.

Digital technology has great benefits for manufacturing industry. It can reduce costs, achieve customized production, and shorten the time to market products. Digital technology enables people to have a complete grasp of production equipment and processes, so as to better grasp the production plan. However, this benefit can only be achieved by connecting all the machine devices and integrating the system software.

Cable Network Connection Faces New Challenges

In most industrial network environments, more than 90% of the objects in the factory need to be connected to the network. However, this is not easy to achieve, especially when the old production equipment becomes an information island and data collection and analysis are not allowed, which makes it impossible for managers to further understand and manage these equipment.

In the past, factory networks mostly used wired connection mode. The cost of equipment modification was high. Re-erecting cables would cost an inestimable amount of time, even lead to production shutdown, resulting in a decline in productivity and income. Therefore, manufacturers must consider whether the value and cost of rewiring meet the expected return on investment.

In the future, a large number of plant equipment will be connected to the Internet, includingRobotMobile AGV, Machine Tools and OthersautomationDevices will make connections more complex, and it will be a huge project for wired connections. The factory needs an easy-to-deploy, easy-to-manage and easy-to-use connection solution to achieve rapid and easy communication between field equipment.

Networks towards wireless, industry more agile

Wireless network has created greater flexibility for manufacturing process, greatly reduced the time of debugging new production line, even the production line conversion adjustment has facilitated a lot, enabling manufacturers to respond more quickly and meet changing customer needs.

Factory workshops need reliable and safe connections to be smarter, faster and more efficient than before. The dedicated wireless cellular network meets the requirements of manufacturers for ultra-fast data transmission, enabling a large number of devices to work together in real time. More importantly, it has high flexibility. When factories introduce new machines and equipment, such as robots, they can be directly configured to connect to the Internet.

Wireless networks have accelerated the landing of digital twins, helping factories improve quality control. Mobile robots in factories receive state information of the surrounding environment through wireless connections, which can prevent collisions with other objects and enhance the safety of plant equipment. In addition, the production equipment through wireless connection, will be able to achieve higher efficiency and quality assurance.

5G New Vent, Major Change in Manufacturing Industry

Based on dedicated 4G LTE cellular network, factories realize real-time interconnection of assets and processes, and realize digitalization and automation of factories. Compared with wired networks, private cellular networks can increase value and reduce waste, while improving security and security.

4G dedicated cellular network enables a large number of equipment in the factory workshop to be networked, and has the required speed, reliability and security. However, this is far from enough. In the future, a large amount of manufacturing data needs to be transmitted, so 5G will be the technology that people expect.

With the formation of connecting factories around the world, the manufacturing industry is undergoing a major transformation. A dedicated cellular connection will bring new tipsindustrial automationApplications can occupy a place in connected factory workshops.