Nokia’s 5G ‘Factory of the Future’ recognized as advancing Industry 4.0

July 4, 2019 – Nokia’s 5G “factory of the future” in Oulu, Finland has been selected by research firm McKinsey and the World Economic Forum as an Advanced Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) Lighthouse, meaning it has seen proven success in adopting and implementing 4IR technologies at scale.

Designed to showcase Industry 4.0 concepts for the manufacturing of Nokia 4G and 5G base stations, the “factory of the future” in Oulu uses 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 per cent productivity gains, 50 per cent savings in time of product delivery to market, and an annual cost savings of millions of euros.

The Lighthouse program includes select 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 Fourth Industrial Revolution 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.

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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 virtualization 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 and no-touch internal logistics automation via connected mobile robots.

“For factory employees, the automation of our Oulu manufacturing environment increases flexibility and adaptability,” says Heikki Romppainen, head of Oulu Factory, Nokia, in a release. “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.”