No need to worry about baking in the hot Texas sun on a summer visit to Ericsson's 5G smart factory in Lewisville in the Dallas-Fort Worth area: solar panels cover the entire parking lot.
It’s not just a practical manufacturing facility producing 5G radio devices. To hear Carlos Torres, head of Industry 4.0 at the plant tell it, the facility is a proof-of-concept laboratory.
The heavily automated, environmentally friendly 300,000 sq. ft. greenfield plant boasts 120% improved output per employee compared to similar Ericsson plants and uses 100% renewable energy. Rainwater tanks on the roof increase water efficiency. Employees have trained using augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR).
Torres doesn’t think it takes a greenfield plant to innovate, but an exclusive focus on the state-of-the-art sure helps.
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