How Telefónica can transform logistics management with 5G

Telefónica presents at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) the ‘Smart Industry’ area, where visitors can immerse themselves in a 360º experience to feel how Industry 4.0 has evolved thanks to a key factor: 5G connectivity, which provides immediacy, security, automation and sustainability.

In the dedicated area of its MWC booth, Telefónica focuses on a sector of the industry that is becoming fundamental in the current paradigm: logistics management. In this proposal you can see how the automation of forwarding logistics with artificial vision can measure 100% of the volume of a load without manual intervention, you can also see how 5G technology allows the automation of intralogistics processes with automatic guided vehicles -also known as AGVs-, or how, combined with Edge Computing, wiring for critical communications is eliminated, achieving greater flexibility in the processes of parcels and logistics sorting.

Another of the cases shown is how IoT predictive maintenance and business analytics can be used to measure in real time the state of health of critical assets in order to anticipate failures and prolong their useful life, and it can also be seen these days at the MWC how Telefónica’s customers have managed to combine remote control functionalities with monitoring capabilities to operate terminals remotely, making operations faster and more economical.

Supporting its clients in the face of industry challenges

Telefónica is the technology partner that guides its customers on the road to digital transformation by applying all its enabling capabilities, such as connectivity, management platforms, Big Data and Artificial Intelligence and security to protect critical assets, making it a benchmark in the sector. It is also committed to sustainability with more efficient solutions that reduce consumption and CO2 emissions, and by incorporating renewable energies and the circular economy into production processes.

At the MWC stand, Telefónica is presenting the success stories of some of the industrial sector customers it has accompanied on their digital transformation journey. This is the case of DBShenker, which, through the volumetric measurement solution implemented by Telefónica Tech called Computer Vision, measures 100% of the load in real time in just 30 seconds without the need for an operator to take any action, significantly optimising the process of reading the label and measuring the volume and weight.

Another of the cases that can be seen is that of the client Viscofan, which managed to automate part of its intralogistics movements between different warehouses by incorporating AGVs. Telefónica distributed the 5G infrastructure and connectivity throughout the industrial complex to be the main network used by the AGVs and, together with its technology partner ASTI Mobile Robotics, managed to provide a comprehensive solution, thus improving its processes and increasing efficiency both in terms of costs and delivery times.

The Valencia Marina entrusted Telefónica to convert traditional electricity and water supply points for boats into smart stations. Tele-managed by La Marina de Valencia and integrating 5G, cybersecurity, innovative identity and blockchain, they enable greater efficiency and reduce the use of these resources, detect water leaks and energy anomalies. They thus contribute to protecting the environment in this particularly vulnerable area, a key contribution for the logistics sector, which can also be seen in the industry area of the Telefónica stand.

The ‘Smart Industry’ area will also show how El Corte Inglés optimised the parcel and sorting processes at its logistics centre in Valdemoro, Madrid. With a Telefónica project in collaboration with Ericsson, a private 5G network was deployed with two use cases: on the one hand, the customer improved the logistics of the routes of the pallet carriers in their movements in the shortest possible time; and, on the other hand, physical wiring was eliminated in the communications of the machines, through wireless communications deployed with 5G coverage.

In the context of the current digital transformation, with the development of connectivity and connected elements applied to infrastructures and systems that were traditionally isolated, the importance of cybersecurity for stopping vulnerabilities, mainly in robots, becomes clear. For this reason, Telefónica, together with its partner Alias Robotics, will show in the ‘Smart Industry’ area some of the vulnerabilities of robots currently used in industrial plants and logistics centres and how intrusion attempts can be detected and blocked.