Ande Hazard, VP of Manufacturing & Transportation Solutions at AT&T Global Business, joins Cheddar News to discuss how 5G is transforming the nature of manufacturing, and enabling innovation in the industry.

How 5G is Enabling Innovation in Manufacturing 

Today's edition of creating connections is powered by 18 T Business Internet dedicated Internet access that allows us to bring the news to you. So we've discussed at length of steps that the manufacturing industry is taking into the digital age, one of the most valuable tools for a more productive sector could be the same one that connects to your phone to your network. Well, five G may be the largest catalyst for innovation yet. And joining me now is Andy hazard VP and manufacturing transportation solutions in A. T. And T. Global business. Andy, thanks for coming on. So 1st, 1st up here, how can the 5G network influence innovation and creativity and manufacturing? If you think about what's happening in manufacturing, there's automation with technologies including advanced robotics, vision systems, augmented reality artificial intelligence. These are all being leveraged to streamline production processes, improve efficiencies which are leading to all the advancements in technology for manufacturing and underneath all that five G's capability of low latency, high capacity is really a natural fit to enable these technology environments for manufacturers. What are some of the obstacles and he's still standing in the way around 5G. And so the pace of technology innovation is so high with so many advances including cloud I. O. T. A. R. V. R. Software defined networking, It can be a struggle for a manufacturer to figure out how to bring all of that together to create the advances they need within their factory floors, which parts of manufacturing in the industry do you think might be able to benefit the most, I think there's three main areas. So the first is digitization on the factory floor um as you accelerate digital technology adoption, this will bring operational efficiencies and if you want to capture growth as a manufacturer you have to embrace all the digital capabilities, everyone from the corporate processes to the factory floor. The second's around cybersecurity. So high profile cyberattacks have really increased the need for cybersecurity but manufacturers need to look not only at their measures for cyber security but the resiliency of their environment and their business in the event of attacks. And the third is really around data and data management and insights. So connectivity is a huge role within the factory to help power technologies like 3D printing or camera as a sensor for quality assurance. And these technologies require an immense amount of data. So you need a fast, secure, reliable connection for these data to move through the environment and the network and then real time data is increasingly important. So if you think about AI or IOT that helps manufacturers maximize safety and asset utilization predictive analytics that are powered by AI and IOT also help minimize downtime and avoid production disruption. But these smart factory infrastructures generate so much data with these technologies you have to have um interconnected technologies and endpoints that can handle that volume and that volume has to also be secure and you've got to process and compute all that data securely. And so we look at all those challenges that really will press the limits of a traditional network architecture and even a wifi environment within a manufacturer. So I'm just curious here what new technology and innovation could use utilizing the power of five G. Manufacturing actually unlock or even enable it will ultimately, but you ultimately provide the power and the consistency that's needed for an intelligent industry ford auto environment. It creates the secure foundation to move the data out of traditional uh corporate silos. Um keep it safely in the four walls of a facility and you can use it to make better business decisions. And if you think about knowledge is power, data is power and so for manufacturers they're using data to improve their operations but those operations continue to grow and get more sophisticated with more connectivity demands and the data from the number of sensors and other devices can create bottlenecks. So if that goes unaddressed you can prevent really processing quickly enough, making near real time decisions really negatively impact potentially your business and your operations and and that's where something like five G enabled private networks coupled with a multi access edge compute or mech really can help in computing the data on premise within a factory facility. These new technologies and ways to compute the data with the speed, the security of the performance helps to transform operations for a manufacturer. Alright, Annie hazard VP of manufacturing and transportation solutions at 18. Global business Andy thank you A T and T business is keeping your business connected with 18 T five G. Fast, reliable, secure, visit a t t dot com slash manufacturing for more information.