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According to SMS, the deployment is one of the first of its kind for the metallurgical industry
In February last year, systems integrator Mugler announced it had selected Ericsson to provide them with tailored 5G private network solutions throughout Germany. The move, Mugler said, would allow them offer campus network solutions to customers both more quickly and more flexibly, regardless of the target sector.
Now, the partnership is beginning to bear fruit, with metallurgical specialist SMS Group announcing its deployment of a private 5G network at their plant in Hilchenbach, Germany, in partnership with Mugler and Ericsson.
According to SMS, the network went live just four weeks after the project was launched, with the company already testing numerous new use cases thanks to the enhanced connectivity. These tests include large scale automation, automated guided vehicles, industrial IoT, and individual worker applications.
“This partnership gives us the opportunity to take huge strides in digitalizing the industry and developing new solutions by utilizing SMS group’s footprint in the steel industry and the 5G technology from Ericsson,” emphasizes Stefan Richter, Head of Local Networks – Campus Networks at Mugler SE.
Alongside benefiting SMS directly in terms of operational efficiency and reducing energy usage, this deployment will also help support a number of German and European initiatives, including the 5G-Furios research projects, which focus on using 5G for industrial monitoring and safety; the European Union’s Horizon 2020 project Zero-SWARM, which aims to digitalise the European manufacturing sector by building an open framework for the engineering and management of smart Cyber-Physical Systems of Systems (CPSoS); and the CLOUD56 research project from Germany’s Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport, which seeks to develop and integrate an Open CloudRAN with industrial hardware.
Indeed, the results of this project will surely be closely watched by the German government, whose strategy regarding industrial 5G has been somewhat unusual. Unlike the majority of countries worldwide, Germany announced in 2019 that it would issue local spectrum licences (specifically in the 3.7–3.8GHz band) to industrial players, allowing them to launch private 5G networks without the need to partner with mobile operators.
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