Ericsson Publishes The Future Of Business Report Predicting The Transformation Trend Of The Manufacturing Industry In 2030
By Oystein Bergmann, Senior Correspondent Scandinavia
Ericsson recently released the Ericsson Future of Business Report: Towards a Smarter, Agile and Safer Production Line, which analyzes and forecasts the challenges facing the manufacturing industry and the possible future transformation of the manufacturing industry. The study, which surveyed 22 markets worldwide and included manufacturers in China, India, Germany, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and the United States, represented 145 million of the nearly 400 million people active in the production line in the research market.
The report pointed out that as globalization brings challenges, the manufacturing industry continues to face competition in productivity and efficiency, and nearly 80 per cent of manufacturers have set a cost reduction goal, in order to reduce costs and improve quality, one of the ways is to promote fully automated production. Nearly two-thirds of respondents expect companies to be at least 80 per cent automated over the next decade, and the application of more powerful information-based production tools and technologies is key to digitalization and smarter, agile and safe production lines.
The survey shows that the application of a number of wireless-connected information communication production tools in factories will grow rapidly, including artificial intelligence (AI) software, augmented reality and virtual reality, collaborative robots, image recognition, digital twins, remote remote control machines, robots and vehicles, unmanned vehicles and autonomous mobile robots, and machine exoskeletons. Machine exoskeletons are used to envelop body parts, such as hands, arms, and even the whole body, providing additional support for line workers for greater strength, precision, and endurance.
The application of these nine information communication technology tools in the manufacturing production context is gradually becoming the mainstream of the manufacturing industry. In fact, about 70 per cent of manufacturers expect to adopt at least five of these nine telecommunications technology tools over the next five years, and their use will grow at least twice as much as they do today. The report also notes that three-quarters of manufacturers say advanced wireless connectivity technologies such as 5G and Wi-Fi 6 are important to such production tools and are an indispensable digital infrastructure to facilitate the smooth operation of such production tools. Eighty per cent of manufacturers said they have deployed or plan to deploy 5G networks over the next five years.
General Manager of Ericsson Taiwan, Zhou Daqi said: “Telecom technology and advanced wireless connectivity will be the key to the digitalization of the manufacturing industry. Ericsson’s Texas 5G Smart Factory, which was selected as a global lighthouse factory by the World Economic Forum, is a case in point. We deployed a private network in our Texas factory and applied a variety of information and communication production tools, such as AR augmented reality, connected robots, etc., to increase the output of each employee by 120 per cent, and through a powerful industrial Internet of Things system, the overall energy consumption was reduced by 24 per cent and indoor water consumption by 75 per cent.”
The report also found that manufacturers using more than three kinds of TST production tools are leading in all aspects, whether it is financial performance, productivity performance, environmental actions, internal overall employee satisfaction, etc.
The report also predicts that wireless connectivity technology will reshape the way companies design, produce and deliver products, and responding to immediate demand will lead to fundamental changes in the future manufacturing industry, leading to the rise of pop-up factories to serve local real-time demand. More than 50 per cent of policymakers expect pop-up factories to become the norm by 2030 and manufacturing-as-a-service to become more common.
