LG executives explain how LG’s Tennessee-based home appliance factory is applying private 5G and automation across the board – using smart applications, AI, computer vision, digital twins and robotics for a more efficient manufacturing process.
About an hour north of Nashville, near the Kentucky border on a road called Life’s Good Way, is a factory where LG makes washing machines and dryers for US customers. Light Reading recently toured the Clarksville, Tennessee, plant to see how the facility makes use of network automation and private 5G.
A washing machine is produced every 13 seconds and dryers exit the production line every 11 seconds at LG’s Clarksville factory. The home appliance factory is situated on a 310-acre site with a factory floor area of nearly 100,000 square feet. Keeping that pace of production across such a large area and maintaining quality control requires automation throughout the factory floor.
Se Wook Oh, project director of PRI US Equipment Engineering Department for LG Electronics; and Charles Lonergan, director of manufacturing for LG Electronics; explain how the factory is applying automation across the board – using smart applications, AI, computer vision, and robotics for a more efficient manufacturing process. The factory also has a digital twin, which “is essentially a virtual replication of our factory so live, we can look at what’s going on,” says Lonergan. For example, the digital twin can be accessed to monitor the efficiency of robotics operating in the factory and make adjustments if needed.
Supporting the nearly 900 employees is automated technology, including robotic arms on the assembly line and autonomous vehicles that use sensors and QR codes to transport materials in the factory. The factory uses around 200 Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) and Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) to move materials throughout the factory floor.
“Rather than having forklift traffic going through our factory or pulling heavy carts, all of our product, after it’s produced, are loaded into carts and moved by those AGV and AMRs to and from each and every one of our processes,” said Lonergan.
The LG factory connects these automated technologies with a Wi-Fi network comprised of 250 access points (APs) and a private 5G network, deployed with Ericsson hardware, that includes 50 5G radios. The 5G network was installed in 2023 due to reliability issues with the Wi-Fi network, which would occasionally disconnect, according to LG.
LG is transitioning from Wi-Fi to 5G “because 5G can transfer a huge amount of data and we applied 5G to the AMR and AGV robots first,” says Oh. He adds that LG has a plan to eventually transition all of its factory equipment over to 5G.
Oh tells Light Reading that LG examined eight states and chose Tennessee because it’s centrally located in terms of distribution to US customers, has an impressive business climate, and a quality workforce.
Construction of the factory began in 2017, and it was designated a “Lighthouse Factory” by the World Economic Forum in 2023 for demonstrating smart factory applications. It’s the first US-based home appliance production facility to be designated as a Lighthouse Factory for its integration of IoT, big data, AI, robotics and other Industry 4.0 technology, according to LG.
Editor’s note: LG provided accommodations and travel to tour the LG factory.
About the Author
Kelsey is a senior editor at Light Reading, co-host of the Light Reading podcast, and host of the “What’s the story?” podcast.
SOURCE: Kelsey Ziser/Light Reading