Gestamp and Telefónica have allied to connect one of the factories that the automotive components multinational has in Barcelona with 5G. It is the first factory in Spain digitized with this new technology, which will allow it to develop its industrial processes in a more optimal way. The project is the result of the collaboration of both companies with MobileWorld Capital Barcelona (MWCapital), within the framework of the 5G Barcelona initiative, which works to position Barcelona and Catalonia in an innovative and open environment for the validation and adoption of 5G technologies and applications through pilot tests such as that of this smart factory.
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Telefónica has connected all the industrial machinery of the Gestamp plant with 5G, with the aim of capturing and processing the data it produces in real time, through the close computing facilitated by edge computing. The information collected in the different industrial devices will be processed more closely than if it were done in the cloud, thus speeding up the decision-making process. And this new smart factory ---and wireless--- is completed with the creation of a virtual model of the processes carried out in the plant ---a digital twin---, which is fed by the received data and allows simulations to be carried out and its operation optimized.
To process all this information and perform the necessary simulations in the digital twin, extensive computing, memory, and storage capacity are required. All these capabilities are covered by Telefónica's Virtual Data Center in Edge service, a virtualized environment that the company is deploying in different locations. For this project, the infrastructure it has in Barcelona, very close to the Gestamp factory, is used. Additionally, the plant has been configured to achieve Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) ---technology that allows applications to be executed and processing tasks to be performed closer to the client--- directly, without making unnecessary jumps in the network or through the Internet, which allows for low communication latency with the digital twin.
Advancing towards industry 4.0
The corporate director of Advanced Manufacturing at Gestamp, René González, explains that they have been working for years on a smart and connected factory model that allows increasing the flexibility of their industrial facilities to manufacture "in a more adapted way" to customer needs. "The 5G connectivity project is part of this strategy.The adoption of 5G technology is part of a process that takes place at a time of great technological disruption in the automotive industry, with the emergence of the electric and connected car and an environment in which vehicle manufacturers offer increasing personalizationin their models, so manufacturing must adapt and add this layer of softwareand intelligence that allows us to do things differently," he explains.Gestamp has been working for years on a smart and connected factory model that allows increasing the flexibility of its industrial facilities to manufacture "in a more adapted way" to the needs of its customers.For her part, the Innovation Manager of Telefónica Spain, Mercedes Fernández, highlights thatwith this practical case, they make the concept of a connected factory a reality and take "an important step in Industry 4.0", one of the keys for the development of 5G and Edge Computing"Telefónica considers it fundamental to advance in the use cases of the new technology in both the professional and private spheres to give meaning to 5G insofar as it offers solutions and responds to the needs of users by contributing to the definition of applications that improve their processes and transform the way things are done," it states. Specifically, Telefónica has carried out more than twelve 5G projects, many of which have been presented in previous editions of the Mobile World Congress (MWC).
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