Revolutionising Europe’s manufacturing future

Amidst the Industrial Revolution roughly two hundred years ago, automation made its first appearance on factory floors, transforming global production and supporting a new era of economic development. Fast forward to 2023, manufacturing is now propelled by cutting-edge innovations such as edge computing.

Contributing to a plethora of digital ecosystem features – from fostering tech skills to shoring up its supply of components and delivering vital infrastructure to people and businesses alike – Dell’s commitment to Europe is permanently tied to inspiring independent innovation.

Through European partnerships like SOLAS and broader Horizon Europe funding, Dell Technologies is positioned on the front lines of this innovation. Thanks to this collaboration, Dell can and will continue to support critical projects across advanced manufacturing, edge computing and information technology (IT) to bring consistent digital transformation benefits to businesses and the wider European society.

Advanced manufacturing is especially critical for European businesses to remain competitive in a globalised environment. Here in Europe, where high costs can mean slim margins, pioneering approaches such as using maintenance and energy sensors can reduce downtime to increase production line efficiency by 5 to 15% and cut energy usage by up to 40%.

Yet, for manufacturing’s own digital transformation to succeed, operators require a massive array of sensors and computational support to generate and process data. To that end, Dell’s Manufacturing Edge solution supports robust information and communications technology and storage infrastructure requirements that increase accessibility and more effectively utilise vast amounts of data.

In an effort to resolutely take Europe’s Industry 4.0 (an initiative covering interconnectivity and automated manufacturing) ambitions further, Dell recently opened two cutting-edge information technology (IT) testing and research centres in Limerick and Cork aimed at positioning Ireland as a global digital transformation pioneer.

In Limerick, the Customer Solution Centre (CSC) Innovation Lab showcases solutions for real-world use cases for several verticals, including Industry 4.0, providing a space for businesses to see, touch and unlock the power of technologies such as edge computing, digital twins, Private 5G, computer vision and AI. At the recently re-developed Dell Technologies Customer Solution Centre in Cork, businesses can test drive solutions with their datasets and workloads prior to deployment, offering the chance to gain valuable hands-on experience before going live.

However, bringing Europe’s manufacturing renaissance to fruition depends first on establishing comprehensive telecommunications networks across the continent. To support that aim, Dell also unveiled the €2 million Open Telecom Ecosystem Lab in Cork earlier this year.

At the Lab, a variety of businesses, start-ups and organisations from around Europe can experiment on their own developmental technologies – in areas like cybersecurity and artificial intelligence in the connectivity space – before rolling out to the general public. In effect, the learnings identified here are vital to eventually create more robust IT networks that will support manufacturing’s growth into the digital environment.

If leveraged effectively, Dell estimates Industry 4.0 will grow Europe’s economy by $949 billion until 2025. These digital ecosystem investments championed by Dell can boost Europe’s present and future technological prowess across many sectors, including advanced manufacturing, where robust data infrastructure is required to support a multitude of connected devices.

Through these and similar initiatives, Dell has emerged as a key industrial player, offering tailored, efficient data storage solutions to support and drive Europe’s modern production capabilities. Ever since the company opened its first European manufacturing site in Ireland back in 1990, it has focused on helping Europe build more sophisticated, cost-effective, digital solutions that power a significant amount of the continent’s cutting-edge production.

Dell’s commitment extends to not only focus on upscaling individual industries, but also driving European companies forward to build a global technology hub that will flourish well into the future.