DEC-JAN 2021AUTOTECHOUTLOOK.COM8By Martin Beltrop, Senior Director Portfolio Management, Nokia EnterpriseIS DRIVING THE SMARTER AUTO FACTORYAuto manufacturing is in a period of rapid change. As the industry pivots towards electrification, entirely new competitors are emerging, product mixes are shifting, and supply chains are being disrupted. At the same time, cloud, AI, machine learning and IoT--the Industry 4.0 disruptors--are creating new challenges and opportunities. Judging by the number of pilots being launched worldwide, the auto industry seems to recognize that one of the most important of these Industry 4.0 technologies will be private 5G networks. Of the various industries embracing 5G and digital transformation, the auto industry is arguably the most complex and the most advanced. The auto manufacturing supply chain is global and interconnected. Factory operations are already highly automated with extensive use of robotics. Just in time inventory systems started first in the automotive sector and lead times get shorter every year.This is both good news and bad news. Much of this highly automated complexity breeds inflexibility, and agility will be critical in meeting the challenges ahead. One of the sources of inflexibility is the reliance on cabled networks for connectivity, largely Ethernet, which makes re-tooling expensive and slow. There are good historical reasons for the reliance on Ethernet cabled networks. Until the arrival of 5G, wireless technologies were not a reliable alternative for most use cases. Wi-Fi is used here and there, but it is a best-effort technology and does not have the performance features to replace Ethernet. 5G will change this, making wireless reliable and powerful enough to replace Ethernet in many cases.IN MY OPINION
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