NTT and Schneider Electric are collaborating to to deliver Private 5G (P5G), an on-premise private network solution and digitisation-enabling platform that promises to dramatically advance digital solutions in the manufacturing environment.
The partnership between NTT and Schneider Electric builds on existing joint strategic innovations that help clients achieve efficiency and sustainability goals with advanced digital processes within the Industry X sectors.
The P5G platform will be piloted at Schneider’s Lexington Smart Factory, the first of its US plants to become a Smart Factory showcase site leveraging IoT connectivity, Edge analytics, and predictive analytics to drive energy efficiency and further sustainability goals.
The P5G will power key use-cases that solve challenges around equipment availability, machine performance, and product quality. For example, the companies will integrate “machine vision” capabilities (industrial cameras with specialized optics) into existing factory and warehouse automation systems, that identify faults as well as wear and tear for incident root cause in near real-time.
Through co-innovation, the solution will provide a model for operational integrity management that scales across a broad footprint of global factory environments to power Industry 4.0, enabling Network Edge platforms.
Additional P5G use-cases to be addressed include unfettered connectivity for improved management of AGV devices across a factory footprint; machine vision application to detect anomalies in machine performance and; augmented reality solutions that enable remote worker support for enhanced equipment maintenance and management and worker experience.
“Our P5G platform brings full-stack managed services, process workflow and IoT application integration capabilities that both addresses strategic objectives towards factory high performance and net zero carbon emission goals,” said Shahid Ahmed, EVP New Ventures and Innovation at NTT.
Luc Rémont, EVP International Operations at Schneider Electric, said that in partnering with NTT, Schneider Electric further extends its manufacturing expertise along with data centre and network solutions to drive innovations for self-contained Edge Private 5G use-cases.
To further the partnership, NTT will deploy its Private 5G services and data centres with Schneider Electric technologies, including a prefabricated data centre to integrate and test its edge offerings using EcoStruxure solutions. This is expected to be fully operative in Schneider Electric factories during the second quarter of 2022.
