5G business value — a use case for Tharsus In partnership with

A Digital Catapult and Ericsson Industrial 5G Accelerator use case report

Industrial adoption of 5G Digital Catapult, Ericsson, and Tharsus It shows how Tharsus could gain present this use case demonstrating an advantage over mainstream the technical and commercial benefits competition in the UK by working with of 5G for industry. those deploying 5G globally to solve industry challenges.

The Digital Catapult Ericsson Industrial 5G Accelerator programme

The Industrial 5G Accelerator 5G can address a wide range of The programme focuses on 5G for programme is a collaboration between use cases, from onsite processes to manufacturing, producing a series 5G technology leader Ericsson and connected goods. Experimentation can of real-life use cases to prove the Digital Catapult. The programme is help reduce industries’ concerns around potential of 5G and help to build the designed to further the accelerated cellular technologies for in-factory case for rapid 5G adoption. The aim is adoption of 5G by UK industry. connectivity, including perceived to help drive new demand by enabling barriers such as cost, interoperability collaboration and innovation based on As a key technology set to underpin with existing networks and security 5G, while engaging with industry the global transition to Industry 4.0 considerations. It will also enable new early adopters. and drive global economic growth, the business models and help UK supply Industrial 5G Accelerator is a bespoke, The Digital Catapult Ericsson chains deliver new services for their manufacturing-focused programme Industrial 5G Accelerator programme customers such as improved health designed to accelerate the adoption brings together: and safety applications, predictive of 5G within UK industries and help maintenance and remote • Challenge owners in manufacturing companies understand how 5G can asset monitoring. industry transform products and services. • 5G vendors, such as Ericsson The partnership creates a unique In 2020, Seagate and Tharsus joined • 5G solutions suppliers/developers opportunity for UK industry, combining as programme partners to co-develop Digital Catapult’s 5G expertise and There are a series of phases, starting individual use cases that evidence 5G’s work in the manufacturing sector as with the definition and selection of use potential, with the aim of unlocking the UK’s leading advanced digital cases to be supported, developed and business efficiencies. This use case technology innovation centre with showcased. This collaborative process explores and presents the learnings Ericsson, one of the world’s leading leads into prototype development, and outcomes for partner providers of information and which will secure internal buy-in from organisation Tharsus. communications technology. each partner. Both use case partners worked The smart manufacturing market is set to grow to US$1 trillion alongside Ericsson and Digital according to a recent report from ABI Research, with 4.3 billion Catapult to identify smart wireless connections predicted by 2030. Over a 5-year period, manufacturing opportunities focusing a U.K.-based warehouse operator that adopts private cellular on improvements for productivity, flexibility and connectivity in an enabled Industry 4.0 technologies could realize a 13.0% industrial setting. 5G-powered increase in gross profit margin and an operational cost saving of $220.9 million. 2 Ericsson | 5G business value — a use case for Tharsus technologies such as , Jeremy Silver, CEO, Digital Catapult, The road to embedding 5G fully into augmented reality (AR), condition- said: “We want to ensure that the an industrial environment might be a based monitoring, asset tracking and best aspects of technology adoption long one, but this project is a big leap predictive maintenance will be used continue post-pandemic and forward in terms of demonstrating the throughout the individual use cases. drive new value into our economy. transformative capability of 5G Collaboration remains fundamental for UK industry.” Through this programme, Digital to successfully achieving this, and Catapult and Ericsson have developed with the addition of these three a business model to help Tharsus leading industrial businesses, the expedite efforts to leverage 5G Industrial 5G Accelerator is in prime capabilities for its position to capitalise on the best of UK (AI) training. manufacturing skills and innovation.

The company: Tharsus Group

Tharsus Group originated as a small Dave Swan, CTO, Tharsus, says: Accelerator programme because sheet metal manufacturer in 1964. The “As an organisation we are driven it allows us to understand and shift to developing and manufacturing by solving real world problems with characterise 5G in a supported advanced machines and started the most appropriate technology environment and with the recognised around 10 years ago, resulting in rather than simply finding potential leaders in the sector. We can strategic machines designed to help applications for technology. To be experiment and test with it so we companies such as BT and Ocado solve effective at this we need to have become experienced in what makes a tough automation challenges and a broad understanding of what is good or a poor potential use case for create new business opportunities. possible and a strong collaborative 5G. This will allow to be confident that network with deep technical expertise when a great use case project

to work with. We are excited to presents, we and our widened

be involved in this Industrial 5G network will deliver”

The challenge: transmitting Within a modern industrial facility, The faster and more accurately the and analyzing large volumes of Tharsus mobile robots can cover a video frames can be transferred, the video data in real time significant area. This makes being able more AI can learn, which will ultimately to reliably transfer their video data to improve the quality of object detection a centralized traffic server a challenge and operational efficiency within a — especially as the volume of content manufacturing or similar environment. captured by the cameras on a moving 5G is the technology that best meets is huge. this requirement, with extremely low Both object detection technology and latency, high reliability and security, AI reside on the server. Feeding the AI and high capacity for different and (ML) applications over a larger area with massive data helps them to train of coverage. and learn to recognize more objects. 3 Ericsson | 5G business value — a use case for Tharsus

The accelerator programme As advanced digital technology Additional benefits for Tharsus: in action specialists and experts in future ● obtaining an in-depth understanding networks, the Digital Catapult team and first-hand experience of 5G recognized the opportunities that 5G capabilities, including its reliability, would bring Tharsus, and so it initiated security, and latency its introduction to the Digital Catapult ● being able to determine how much Ericsson Industrial 5G Accelerator better and faster their central AI/ programme as well as the creation of a ML would perform when business use case for 5G. fed with object recognition using 5G connectivity In addition to working collaboratively ● experiencing first-hand the with Tharsus and Ericsson to performance improvements of 5G determine a viable 5G solution over Wi-Fi, such as a reduction in through the program, Digital Catapult the number of dropped frames and created a robot model that actively an increase in the quality of object demonstrated the power and potential recognition of 5G as a means of feeding ● access to more data to learn from, large volumes of data into with multiple cameras all capturing AI/ML technology. different objects while moving The opportunity for Tharsus: ● the opportunity to apply this ● to test the capabilities of 5G without solution to other use cases within having to invest and pay upfront the company’s production line ● to be part of a showcase alongside significant industry players ● to be one of the early adopters of industrial 5G and improve operational efficiency ● to build internal expertise and enhance its AI/ML capabilities ● to showcase the evolving capabilities of 5G provided by Digital Catapult, Ericsson, and their partners 4 Ericsson | 5G business value — a use case for Tharsus Value for business

The Unlocking the Value of Industry provided by 5G enabling real-time 4.0 research study published by the ABI navigation and route optimization Research Group forecasts a significant capabilities for autonomous increase in connections for factories mobile robots. and warehouses. 5G will eventually KPMG’s recent MWC 2019: Unlocking support layer 1–2 performance, such the benefits of 5G study predicts that as scheduling, latency, and jitter. It will the greatest benefits of 5G are likely to also enable time-critical robotic motion be seen in the enterprise market. The control, with a 2ms (millisecond) cycle study predicts that over the next seven time and a low error rate. years, an estimated GBP 3.35 trillion Machine vision video and simultaneous in value will be unlocked through use location and mapping (SLAM) cases across the government, finance, processing will be outsourced to the healthcare, and manufacturing sectors. Cloud, with the bandwidth and latency

5G investments are also expected to ● agile automation, providing impact the following areas: automation with minimal trade-off ● machine-enhanced decision making, in terms of customization, flexibility minimizing human error and and quality improving the quality of ● intelligent efficiency, bringing decision-making ubiquitous access to data and ● data richness, unleashing new computer power while reducing business models through vast friction and waste and amounts of additional data enhancing quality from sensors ● trusted connection, providing critical ● visualisation, providing operations services and products with security personnel or customers with deep data and network uptime knowledge and experience overlays 5 Ericsson | 5G business value — a use case for Tharsus Other applications of 5G

5G will also have a crucial role in For IoT to fulfill its potential as the The fusion of 5G, AI and driving and unleashing AI/ML as well key generator of massive data — and IoT defines the intelligent as (IoT) capabilities for AI to absorb, analyse, and digest connectivity that will drive by serving as a platform for fast that data — a third technology in the transfer of the massive amounts middle, 5G, is needed to transfer that and enhance efficiency of data that these technologies so data across. in Industry 4.0 and desperately require. manufacturing.

Maximizing the 5G advantage

According to McKinsey & Company’s The 5G era: New horizons for advanced electronics and industrial companies, 5G will result in: ● 100 times faster speeds than LTE, with 1–10 gigabits per second ● 100-fold increase in the number of supported devices, reaching 1 million devices per km sq ● improvement from 20ms to <1ms ● 99.999 percent reliability ● 90 percent reduction in power consumption Manufacturers wanting to gain a competitive advantage using 5G need to create a list of potential B2B use cases, noting whether they are distinctive or designed to satisfy Market leaders have already started In this environment, industrial new standards. their 5G B2B partnerships; for example, partnerships that create internal 5G McKinsey suggests that they should Ericsson has signed an agreement teams to assess potential partners and then prioritize distinctive use cases to implement 5G technology in Audi their offerings may have an advantage. with the highest value — additional Production Lab, while Volkswagen use cases can be rolled out after 5G is working with AWS to build an coverage is widely available. industrial cloud for IoT devices.

Future prospects

5G technology will play a crucial role enhanced by other 5G-enabled devices, Digital Catapult provides physical and in creating the factory of the future, such as wearables and technologies digital facilities for experimentation where applications in which <1ms like augmented reality (AR). and testing that would otherwise not latency is essential will be found. be accessible for smaller companies. This business use case was created by Combined with the almost limitless Digital Catapult in collaboration with As well as breaking down barriers to processing and data storage available Tharsus and Ericsson. technology adoption for start-ups and in the Cloud, 5G communications scaleups, our work de-risks innovation will take robots in next-generation Digital Catapult is the UK’s leading for large enterprises and uncovers new manufacturing environments way advanced digital technology commercial applications in immersion, beyond current capabilities. The innovation center, driving early future networks, and artificial exchange of large amounts of adoption of technologies to make intelligence technologies. information between robots and UK businesses more competitive factory workforces will revolutionize and productive and grow the www.digicatapult.org.uk the factory floor, and capability, country’s economy. safety, and performance will be further 6 Ericsson | 5G business value — a use case for Tharsus

Ericsson enables communications service providers to capture the full value of connectivity. The company’s portfolio spans Networks, Digital Services, Managed Services, and Emerging Business and is designed to help our customers go digital, increase efficiency, and find new revenue streams. Ericsson’s investments in innovation have delivered the benefits of telephony and mobile broadband to billions of people around the world. The Ericsson stock is listed on Nasdaq Stockholm and on Nasdaq New York.

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