- Ericsson puts private 5G to work on its own factory floor
- Private 5G gives factory robots an edge versus Wi-Fi, according to the vendor
- Ericsson is using the site in part to prove private 5G’s ROI to prospective factory customers
LEWISVILLE, TEXAS — Ericsson is practicing what it preaches at its 5G USA Smart Factory in this northwestern Dallas suburb.
The factory uses a private 5G network, moving autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) faster and with fewer handovers, increasing productivity in the 80,000-square-foot facility. The entire site covers about 300,000 square feet in total, including offices and a warehouse.
About 28 Wi-Fi access points are mounted in the factory area, and when the AMRs are connected over Wi-Fi, a lot of handovers take place to get the robots from one end of the floor to the other, said Matt Hume, production manager at the facility.
Comparatively, only two 5G Ericsson Radio Dots cover the same area. “We're seeing a lot of improvement due to the reduced handovers, and the 5G offers extra functionality,” he told Fierce during a factory tour on Wednesday.
The 5G network helps the robotic fleet management system better understand where everything is at any given time due to the extra bandwidth compared to when they're connecting over Wi-Fi, he said.
The factory does not have any network slicing, but it uses millimeter wave and C-band spectrum from an unnamed, but “major” public network operator.
Ericsson private 5G on factory floor
Ericsson’s use of a private 5G network, which has played a key role in the factory’s sustainability achievements, is a great way to show potential 5G private network customers what they can do, whether it’s an auto manufacturer or a warehouse facility.
However, there’s also a real chicken and egg situation going on here, according to Josh Cave, manager of data and analytics for the factory.
Oftentimes, manufacturing technology producers don’t see enough demand for a 5G product, but the factories are saying they’d love to buy a 5G product – if only someone would provide it. Ericsson is trying to bring these factions together to show how it can be done – and that it doesn’t have to be all that complicated, he said.
The return on investment (ROI) can be pretty dramatic. For example, if private 5G can help a motorcycle manufacturer produce three more motorcycles a day, that adds up over the course of a couple of months. The network then pays for itself.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg. “There's a lot of other things that you can do with 5G connectivity, especially in a much larger space, or space where you've got indoor and outdoor connectivity requirements,” Cave said.
Last year, Nokia signaled that it was focusing on the higher revenue-generating, mission critical sector of private networks versus the market it had been courting for many years.
Nokia was an early proponent of the Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) spectrum band in the U.S. and relied on it to deliver private networks in the U.S. CBRS is a unique shared spectrum model that uses a blend of licensed and unlicensed spectrum.
Ericsson has not backed off private networks the way Nokia did, but Ericsson executives are clear that their preference is always high-power, licensed spectrum, which is the kind of spectrum that its major mobile network operator (MNO) customers rely on.
Ericsson’s growing private 5G
Matt Jones, VP/head of Networks at Ericsson Americas, said private networks are a growing part of what Ericsson does.
“We’re definitely seeing an increase in the work that we're doing with our private network base compared to what we did a couple of years ago,” he told Fierce.
Ericsson’s model includes partnerships with communications service providers, but it will work directly with utilities and large enterprises, he said.