Verizon Business have partnered with Deloitte to co-innovate 5G and mobile edge computing (MEC) solutions that can transform manufacturing and retail, and ultimately expand to other sectors.

Verizon and Deloitte are collaborating on solutions to transform manufacturers into “real-time enterprises” with real-time intelligence and business agility by integrating next-gen technologies including 5G, MEC, computer vision and AI with cloud and advanced networking.

The companies are co-developing a smart factory solution at Verizon’s Customer Technology Center in Richardson, TX that will utilize computer vision and sensor-based detection coupled with MEC to identify and predict quality defects on the assembly line and automatically alert plant engineering and management in near real-time.

The companies will also introduce an integrated network and application edge compute environment for next generation application functionality and performance that reduces the need for manual quality inspection, avoids lost productivity, reduces production waste, and ultimately lowers the cost of raw materials and improves plant efficiency.

The combination of SD-WAN and VNS Application Edge will bring together software defined controls, application awareness, and application lifecycle management to deliver on-demand network transformation and edge application deployment and management.