Nokia’s digitalisation of its 5G Oulu factory recognised by the World Economic Forum as an “Advanced 4th Industrial Revolution Lighthouse”
Nokia‘s 5G “factory of the future” in Oulu, Finland was selected by McKinsey and the World Economic Forum as an Advanced 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR) Lighthouse, reflecting leadership and proven success in adopting and implementing 4IR technologies at scale. Leveraging Nokia technologies to digitalise its own pre-production facility demonstrates Nokia’s ability to digitally transform and modernise its customers’ manufacturing facilities for Industry 4.0.
Designed to showcase Industry 4.0 concepts for the manufacturing of Nokia 4G and 5G base stations, the “factory of the future” in Oulu leverages Nokia’s private (4.9G/LTE) wireless networks for secure and reliable connectivity for all assets within and outside the factory, IoT analytics running on Edge cloud, and a real-time digital twin of operations data. The factory, which produces 1,000 4G and 5G base stations per day, generated significant annual improvements, including more than 30% productivity gains, 50% savings in time of product delivery to market, and an annual cost savings of millions of euros.
The Lighthouse program, conducted in collaboration with McKinsey, includes select Lighthouse factories that are transforming work to make it safer, less repetitive, diversified and productive. Nokia was selected as a Lighthouse by an expert panel based on its implementation of 4IR technologies that drove financial and operational impact in the Oulu factory. As part of the Global Lighthouse Network, Nokia will collaborate with other world leaders to share knowledge and best practices to help enterprises and manufacturers adopt the technologies of the future, and overcome key challenges enterprises face during their digital transformation journeys.
Kathrin Buvac, president of Nokia Enterprise and chief strategy officer, said,”We are paving the way for enterprise customers to realise the vision of Industry 4.0 and industrial automation by applying our technology to our manufacturing needs.”
“For our Oulu 5G facility, we created a ‘factory of the future’ environment leveraging private wireless networks for reliable and secure in-factory connectivity, edge cloud and IoT analytics. We are very pleased that our technology has delivered productivity gains of over 30% for our factory and we look forward to sharing this expertise with customers, helping them accelerate growth and unlock their full potential.”
Most manufacturers seek to increase flexibility while automating and reconfiguring factories. Nokia’s expertise adjusting to high-demand environments ensures that the company is well equipped to lead enterprises into the Industry 4.0 era. The award-winning factory of the future illustrates how customer facilities can reap the benefits of increased productivity, agility, product quality, and product lead time for their businesses, as achieved in Oulu.
Demonstrated use cases in Oulu pre-production factory include:
- Virtualisation of new product introduction (NPI)
- Flexible robotics to ensure high-productivity and agility for continuous new ramp-ups
- 4.9G/LTE Private wireless network to speed up NPI line re-layout
- Cloud-based digital data control, enabling real-time process management
- No-touch internal logistics automation via connected mobile robots
Heikki Romppainen, head of Oulu Factory, Nokia, said, “For factory employees, the automation of our Oulu manufacturing environment increases flexibility and adaptability. The ‘conscious factory’ has evolved the working ecosystem – increasing motivation and the wellbeing of employees by automating the traditionally repetitive tasks, making work more diversified and productive.”
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