Redefining business
Ericsson is creating a world of limitless connectivity, enabling real-time cyber-physical collaboration and highly advanced product design and development in a completely virtual environment. This will redefine business by reducing risk and time to market while creating huge efficiencies and opportunities across the value chain.
A future defined by continual innovation
Connected technologies are enabling leaner, faster and smarter responses to customer needs – seamlessly navigating the relationship between supply, demand, resources, data analytics and the imperatives of social and environmental responsibility.
As the VP of 5G Enterprise & Cloud at Singtel, Dennis Wong is driven by innovation in business solutions. He believes the future will be created by empowering the next generations to think differently about global enterprise, connectivity and cross-industry collaboration.
Where to, for the future of connected vehicles?
With cross-industry collaboration and ecosystem design, we can create a sustainable future. Connecting transport with our lives, in ways that weren't previously possible. The future of the industry will rely on innovation at the intersection of technology and design. Empowered by connectivity these elements can help change the mobility landscape.
Working together with experts from a variety of sectors, Anya Ernest, Exploration Lead at Polestar is helping pioneer product development for a new generation of vehicle users.
The pioneers driving the future
The automotive industry was an early adopter of connectivity and robotics. Maserati has operatives and managers monitoring progress and anticipating problems via VR glasses made possible by introducing a digital twin of their factory floor - giving real time access to performance of the robots and potential maintenance issues.
At the Port of Livorno in Italy, an Ericsson-implemented AI operation system manages a complex network. Thanks to digital twin technology, the network operator could create a full-scale virtual replica of the entire port. This enables employees to work safely and efficiently in a virtual world, with their actions implemented by machinery in the real one. It’s a blueprint for the future – not just in international freight, but in every kind of industrial environment.
Future factories
What will tomorrow’s design and manufacturing look like? Factories of the future could change in many ways – from the size and scale of facilities, to their speed and output. It’s possible that limitless connectivity will help change the traditional assembly line forever, allowing a more agile and immediate manufacturing process.
Limitless connectivity will have embedded the use of AI, eXtended reality (XR) and digital twins into production. Precise mapping can create a full-scale digital model of a car, an engine, a building or any other product, on which designers from all over the world can collaborate in real time. More immersive than today’s CAD drawings, it can be seamlessly transferred to the production plant, tested and developed in the mirror world (a representation of the physical world in digital form), and adapted remotely in real time.
The possibilities for customer personalization will be immense. But they don’t just stop at production. The wealth of digital data fed back from the product in use will provide designers and engineers with unprecedented understanding of performance and issues, so they can constantly perfect the design. The product will also be able to be tracked in the mirror world, so it won’t just update designers on how it’s being used but offer a fuller view of where the product is being used, allowing developers to better understand how to optimize performance. Users will benefit from digital alerts, upgrades, and modifications which go far beyond anything they currently receive. This is made possible through AI, where the network acts as an extension of the system, thinking, correcting and adapting in real time to maximise the quality, safety and efficiency of the connected systems.
Imagine if with greater responsiveness and lower wastage, factories could become smart, agile and adaptable enough to manufacture the products needed locally, based entirely on quantifiable demand. Consumer focussed industries will discover new tools which could, for instance, help the production of clothes that are personalized and sized for individual customers. Smart clothing could help inform the future buying choices of customers: running shoes could analyse a wearer’s stride, then recommend the ideal pair when the time comes to replace them – and maybe even allow the wearer to digitally try the new pair on through haptic technology.
Connected teams are effective teams
The capabilities of connectivity offer huge advantages in the early stages of manufacturing by enhancing the collaborative power of integrated data and design teams. Freed from physical walls and geographical restraints, teams are able to work more closely together across multiple disciplines, rather than remaining in disconnected silos. The result is more fruitful, innovative solutions to production challenges and the changing currents of customer demand.
Better collaboration through connectivity will also help us increase sustainability by helping to reduce business travel, or potentially even the need for it at all. The future of digital collaboration is in real time and uses a full sensory solution, where all your senses can be transferred to a virtual world, meaning touch, sight, and smell enhance the experience. This will allow more enterprises to be able to draw from a global talent pool that isn’t reliant on travel to be in the same place.
The end of many networks
Limitless connectivity could transform the old idea of intranets and extranets. Enterprises will no longer rely on a silo of networks for different parts of their business. Instead, we’ll see a future of one pervasive cellular network, where all functions will be contained. This single network would create an end-to-end system bringing in arrays of data at different stages of product development, design and production – supporting real-time collaboration and enabling flexible localized solutions. An intelligent network would also ensure that it is constantly adapting while searching for ways to become more efficient and staying on top of potential issues. For Ericsson’s customers, this represents major new possibilities for revenue streams while cutting costs and operational overheads.
What is required to make this possible?
The new revolution will make huge demands on network capabilities.
Digitalized & programmable physical world
Making a digital twin requires huge numbers of embedded sensors, all connected and sharing data in real time. And with multiple designers in different locations all working together on the same model, everything needs to be seamless and immediate.
Internet of senses
Concepts like XR and other immersive capabilities will help customers touch and interact with products from anywhere – but they will rely on networks to deliver the experience. That requires extremely low latency, high data rates, and efficient and flexible spectrum usage.
Connected intelligent machines
AI will be able to bring together connected devices and applications and because of the collected data can help make judgements on behalf of the operator. Additionally, using algorithms and trend analysis, it can also see exceptional behaviour and prevent issues too. All of this requires the network to support AI processing power, and for the network itself to use AI to optimize its own performance. Everything will stand or fall on the power and reliability of the network.
