WEF acclaims Nokia’s digitalisation

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, said the company in a press release.

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, generates 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 programme, 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.

“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 per cent for our factory and we look forward to share this expertise with customers, helping them accelerate growth and unlock their full potential,” said Nokia Enterprise President and Chief Strategy Officer Kathrin Buvac.

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.