Verizon has deployed a private 5G network at the 5,500 square-metre ‘smart factory’ at Wichita State University in Kansas, in the US. The showcase facility, dubbed Smart Factory @ Wichita, is on the university’s science research campus. It is sponsored and “convened” by the Industry 4.0 consultancy group at UK-headquartered professional services outfit Deloitte. Verizon Business, the US operator’s enterprise division, said the network is already live.
Verizon Business describes itself as a “builder-level collaborator” at the site – implying it has been drafted in to provide elements of the edge networking and computing infrastructure. Twenty organisations have been engaged in at the university, which opened in late 2020. Verizon Business said it will “leverage” all of them to curate and optimise its Industry 4.0 sales portfolio (“help customers… [with] improved connectivity and use of data”.)
Deloitte is looking to use the private 5G network to showcase certain Industry 4.0 applications, including: increased shop floor visibility using predictive maintenance analytics (to “address around 50 percent of the root causes of downtime”, says Verizon Business); improved quality assurance through use of machine vision and other analytics to detect defects in products or services; and automated material handling with AGV and AMR fleets.
The other use case is workplace safety, supported principally by enabling machine automation to reduce human error and manual workloads to “minimise injury and productivity loss”, said Verizon Business. The site includes an operational production line and “experiential labs” for developing manufacturing technologies and strategies. Deloitte is using Verizon’s public 5G and multi-access edge computing for its Industry 4.0 recommendations to enterprises.
Jennifer Artley, in chare of 5G acceleration at Verizon Business, said: “The [site] is a microcosm of industry 4.0 itself, with a wide range of… partners and technologies… in one ecosystem to make a supercharged impact. 5G brings… bandwidth and speed to… help make these impacts replicable in a plethora of business applications at virtually any scale — customers have the flexibility to dream big and start small. 5G is the backbone of Industry 4.0.”
Jason Bergstrom, in charge of the facility for Deloitte Consulting, said: “As smart manufacturing [is] executed at scale, the [volume] of devices, data and information… continues to dramatically increase. By bringing together Verizon’s 5G experience with Deloitte’s… business strategy, technology, and deep industry experience with other… collaborators, organisations can help clients accelerate the speed and adoption of operational transformations.”
