Nokia WING demonstrates just how smart a bulldozer can be

Nokia WING demonstrates just how smart a bulldozer can be

Ankur Bhan, Global Head of WING Business Line, tells Intelligent CIO why the company showcased a ‘smart bulldozer’ at GITEX and demonstrated how monitoring can enable fault prediction in machines to increase safety on construction sites.

This year, the Nokia WING (Worldwide IoT Network Grid) team were delighted to showcase a demonstration at GITEX.

We showed guests and exhibitors how global IoT is crucial for harnessing the power of connected assets. Given the boom in construction across the MENA region over the last 10 years, this was a perfect event and location to show how embedding connectivity into construction machinery significantly benefits daily operations on building sites right across the region.

That’s why we showcased a ‘smart bulldozer’ and demonstrated how monitoring for asset performance can enable fault prediction in machines and significantly increase safety on construction sites.

The MENA region has seen eyewatering levels of growth in construction output over the last 10 years. We’ve seen a slight slowdown this year, but according to GlobalData, construction in the region will quickly accelerate to reach 4.9% by 2022/23.

With the proliferation of football stadiums, hotels, residential apartments and shopping centres shooting up throughout the region, it’s critical that construction firms run efficient operations and have access to real time data that shows them the performance of their assets and helps to reduce costly and time-consuming faults during the building development phases.

How can they do this? The ability to collect IoT data from all parts of the supply chains and operations is the key. However, what’s clear is that construction companies do not want to spend significant amounts of resource on figuring out and ultimately managing a complex network of IoT machinery and data collection systems.

We demonstrated how construction firms can partner with mobile network operators enabled by our technology so they can focus on what they are best at; building the stunning cities of the future and alongside operators, Nokia WING can worry about data and asset performance. Construction companies require a ‘one touch’ partner who can provide secure, constant connectivity to products and machines anywhere in the world.

Equally crucial is the fact that we have also seen how health and safety issues have sometimes led to injuries and fatalities on construction sites right around the world. Transitioning to smart bulldozers and other construction equipment will drive down the rates of human error and enable construction crews to increasingly control machines safely.

The capability of an IoT network grid is not limited to the construction sector, we see manufacturers increasingly embedding connectivity into their smart products, from the connected refrigerator to huge industrial transformers that easily cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. This enables manufacturers to monitor and maintain machines and products after they are sold, which in turn provides opportunities for upselling new services or features.

Nokia WING, together with our mobile network operator partners, are unleashing manufacturers and construction companies to reach their full potential. WING is a globally distributed, cloud-native mobile core infrastructure with a single, global connectivity management platform.

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