The Ericsson USA 5G smart factory in Lewisville is officially operational, with its first 5G base station recently produced.
The base station is intended to enable rapid 5G deployments in urban environments, a key piece of Ericsson’s North American 5G efforts and part of the Ericsson Radio System portfolio. The novel product—a millimeter-wave Street Macro base station—places radio access components in a single, lightweight enclosure, which enables smooth, fast, and cost-effective deployments.
The Lewisville location is expected to be one of the most automated and sustainable 5G smart factories in the U.S. when it reaches its full operational capabilities later in 2020.
In September, Ericsson announced it chose Lewisville for the fully automated, 300,000-square-foot smart “Factory of the Future.” With the Ericsson North America headquarters in Plano, the new factory aims to broaden Ericsson’s presence in North Texas. Ericsson’s direct investment in the factory is about $100 million.
It’s the company’s first 5G smart factory in the United States.
“We continue to increase our investments in the U.S., so that we can more rapidly respond to customer demands, accelerating our pace of innovation and time to market for critical new products,” Niklas Heuveldop, president and head of Ericsson North America, previously said. “Lewisville is an ideal location for this factory of the future, demonstrating how 5G, IoT and AI will transform industries, leading the way for increased investments in smaller, nearshore manufacturing sites with unique mass customization capabilities and significant positive impact on sustainability and customer experience.”
The Lewisville factory is expected to accelerate 5G innovations and develop the ecosystem around Industry 4.0 (a significant transformation in how we produce products because of the digitization of manufacturing) in the region. Ericsson believes incombining 5G, Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning, an ecosystem will be created that develops innovation and technology to drive the rapid adoption of 5G in the U.S.
And announcing the production of the 5G base station keeps those plans on target, according to Erik Simonsson, head of the USA 5G Smart Factory.
“We’re excited to produce advanced 5G radio products for our U.S. customers, to meet the demand for next-generation 5G networks across the country,” Simonsson said in a statement. “It’s also exciting to use our own 5G products in the factory for wireless connectivity to increase production efficiency.“
The tech giant is using its own 5G connectivity in the smart factory for agile operations and flexible production via automated warehouses, connected logistics, automated assembly, packing, product handling, and autonomous carts.
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