A journey tomanufacturing
excellence withedge AI
LENOVO + NVIDIA® SOLUTION BRIEF

Drive operational efficiency, optimize processes, and harness
real-time data with edge technologies and AI applications
The situation
Manufacturing: A market in transition
to Industry 4.0
The manufacturing market is complex andchallenging. Following decades of globalization, theindustry is experiencing intensified competition,expanding regulatory requirements, and a chronic
skills shortage. The situation is exacerbated by thefallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, supply chain
disruption, and rising operational expenses, primarily
driven by escalating material prices, energy rates,
and labor costs. Additionally, the explosion of
manufacturing technology has created afundamental dependency on equipment reliability
and technical expertise while elevating the risk tocybersecurity, with the industry becoming a target
for malicious actors.
At the same time, manufacturers are under pressure
to embrace sustainable practices and meet stringent
EHS (Environment, Health and Safety) and ESG(Environmental, Social, and Governance)
commitments, prompting a critical reassessment of
their processes and supply chains. Thistransformation necessitates significant technologicalintegration and investment in safe, eco-friendly
manufacturing practices.
Despite this complex landscape, the sector isundergoing a radical shift. Adopting artificial
intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT), andedge computing is revolutionizing operations,driving efficiency, enabling real-time dataprocessing, and enhancing security. Edge AI has
emerged as a pivotal player in this evolution,
enabling predictive maintenance, superior customer
experiences, smart inventory management, andsecure data infrastructure.
AI's role in supply chain management is pivotal,
facilitating swift responses to economic fluctuations
and disruptions. This integration of transformativetechnologies is steering the manufacturing sector
toward Industry 4.0, heralding an era ofunprecedented innovation and efficiency. As wenavigate this thrilling journey, it is evident that edge
AI will continue to play a vital role in shaping thefuture of manufacturing.

Seizing the opportunities ofedge and AI
The AI manufacturing market size was US$1.82
billion in 2019 and is projected to reach
US$9.89 billion by 2027, at a CAGR of 24.2%.1IDC 2 predicts that from 2023 more than 50%of new enterprise IT (Information Technology)
infrastructure deployed will be at the edge
rather than in corporate data centers.
A 2022 study by PwC3 found that 89% ofmanufacturers have implemented or are rollingout AI and analytics. Similarly, 73% of thesurveyed manufacturers have implemented or
are rolling out smart technology.
A recent insights report by AT&T4 shows:
78% of manufacturing respondents globallyare planning, have partially implemented, or
have fully implemented an edge use case.
50% of manufacturing respondents statedthey are in the mature stage of deployingedge initiatives.
A recent IDC survey5 revealed the majority ofmanufacturers are investing in multiple AI
technologies, with 59% planning to increase
investment in digital AI quality andcompliance, 56% in autonomous AI factory
operations, and 54% in advanced AI digitalsimulation.
According to Deloitte,6 61% of manufacturers
partner with specialized technology
companies, with 30% utilizing in-house
resources.

Fortune Business Insights, 2020, Automation: ArtificialIntelligence (AI) in Manufacturing Market2MIT Technology Review, Edge Computing: Powering theFuture of Manufacturing
3PwC, 2022, PwC Digital Factory Transformation Survey
2022
4AT&T Cybersecurity InsightsTM Report, 2022, Securing theEdge: Focus on Manufacturing
5SAS, 2022, AI in Manufacturing: Enabling Business-driven
Factory Innovations
6Deloitte, 2023, 2023 manufacturing industry outlook
1

Empowering smart manufacturing solutions
with Lenovo and NVIDIA® edge AI

An industry-leading edge
AI infrastructure solution
Optimized performance at the edge:
Personalized end-to-end GPU-accelerated
solutions from Lenovo and NVIDIA offer fast
insights to drive customer experience,
productivity, and performanceimprovements.
A trusted partnership: Lenovo and NVIDIA
combine core competencies to power theAI journey for world-leading enterpriseorganizations. Through a strategicpartnership, Lenovo and NVIDIA collaborate
on R&D initiatives, AI Labs, and AI Centersof Excellence, helping customers at every
stage of their technology adoption process.

In partnership with NVIDIA, Lenovo edge AI solutions
empower data-centric manufacturers to optimize
internal processes and operations. With computing
power at the edge, AI can run locally, automating andimproving processes while benefiting from low latency
and central control through connections to cloud-based
nodes. It's powerful computing when and where it isneeded.
Lenovo's AI-ready edge portfolio comprises
purpose-built devices designed to be networked
on-premises. The NVIDIA AI Enterprise Suite runs on
Lenovo's infrastructure, accelerating the speed at whichdevelopers can build and deploy AI applications. The
fully integrated AI solution delivers best-in-classavailability, security, and scalability with enterprise-level
manageability and high-performance data analytics.
These innovative solutions help manufacturers establish
agile, intelligent, and sustainable operations to deliver
business value through smart production, supply chain
and transportation, and industrial field services.
Edge computing is already making significant strides inthe manufacturing industry, with experts foreseeing arobust trend with a Compound Annual Growth Rate(CAGR) of 37% projected from 2020 to 2027.4 With
distributed technology, free from the shackles ofstandalone data centers, Lenovo edge AI solutions
provide the complete platform to help start or
accelerate an edge AI journey.

Edge AI in every manufacturing sector

Aerospace &Defense

Auto

Food &BeverageIndustrialIT

Easy and secure edge management:
Lenovo and NVIDIA provide complete,pre-validated, edge-optimized
infrastructure with record-setting
performance and low total cost ofownership (TCO). The integrated solution
enables the user-friendly and secure
operation of AI applications with existing
infrastructure management frameworks,and facilitates faster AI deployment andtime to value.
Management and implementation: Lenovo
Open Cloud Automation (LOC-A) offers
faster ROI and insights, saving time andmoney — and reducing carbon footprints —by automating all the manual tasks required
to get an entire edge infrastructure network
up and running. LOC-A operates at scale inhours, not days or weeks, as previously
required. The provisioning process is
simplified by using a zero-touch secure
utility running on a smartphone or laptop,
configuring, validating, and thenonboarding the entire spectrum of Lenovo
ThinkEdge clients and servers, with limited
skillsets required and minimal travel needed.
And with enhanced XClarity management
functionality, edge customers get an easy,
one-stop management platform across allof Lenovo's edge devices. They no longer
have to work in separate applications andscreens to ensure their edge servers areonline, up to date, operating efficiently, anddelivering the data needed to makeimportant, fast business decisions.
Whether on-premises or in-cloud,customers get device management
capabilities with minimal footprint but witha scalable architecture.
AT&T Cybersecurity InsightsTM Report, 2022, Securing
the Edge: Focus on Manufacturing

4

Pharmaceuticals

Semiconductor& Electronics

Supply Chain

TransportHarnessing the power of edge AI:Reshaping manufacturing,streamlining supply chains, andempowering field services
The rise of enhanced smart manufacturingIntelligent manufacturing: Use IoT tocapture data to drive efficiencies andoptimize operational processes andMaterial Requirements Planning (MRP) withAI data analysis in real time and after-time.
Factory planning: Use cognitive computing
to support factory planning, digitaltwinning, and continuous improvement ofoperations and worker experiences.
Improved quality: Use computer vision anddeep learning to detect and prevent
defects throughout manufacturing, fromcomponent assembly to shipment.
Increased productivity: Optimizeequipment effectiveness and production,
aided by real-time Intelligent Video
Analysis (IVA) on assembly lines.
Cost optimization: Analyze operational
patterns, integrate OT (OperationalTechnology) and IT, and drive
decision-making to enable optimizationand cost reduction.
Enhanced customer experience: Provide
customers with real-time information on
inventory and live communication
throughout production and delivery.
Advanced robotics: Enhance service
quality, human experiences, and efficiency
by automating manufacturing processes
such as production line work.
Predictive maintenance: Predict machine
failure and schedule maintenance toprevent costly breakdowns and production
disruptions.
Energy efficiency: Monitor and adjust
operations to identify abnormal energy
consumption patterns for sustainability andsignificant cost savings.
Operational safety: Enhance EHS
compliance using IVA to monitor humanactions with advanced warning technology
on manufacturing assembly lines.
Upgraded connectivity and security:
Enable faster and secure data processing
with localized data hosting to reducereliance on latency and bandwidth.

Powering the supply chain and transportation
Decision-making: Power logistics and resource allocation
decisions with real-time and after-time facility
management data and analysis to drive decision-making.
Inventory management: Identify inventory shortages
and surpluses to enable proactive replenishment,management, and supply chain performance.
Product availability: Use AI forecasting to anticipate
consumer demand and eliminate product delays,ensuring availability.
Warehouse robotics: Boost efficiency and reducemanual workload with advanced robotics automating
warehouse processes such as picking and packing.
Proactive inspections: Use IVA to identify broken
packages, damaged containers, inspect warehouses andrail routes to catch issues before they escalate.
Route optimization: Use edge AI to optimize routes inreal time based on traffic, weather, and other factors.
Enabling excellence in industrial field services
Deep learning: Analyze large data sets with deeplearning to capture insights and functional information
for decision-making.
Federated learning: Facilitate machine learning amongdevices without data transfer, enhancing performance,
ensuring data privacy, optimizing bandwidth, andcontributing to sustainability through reduced cloud
traffic and energy consumption.
Infrastructure management: Build valuable
manufacturing models, proactively monitor and repairinfrastructure, preempting breakpoints to reduce costs
and increase service availability.
Empowered workforce: Equip workers with powerful
technology, including IVA, collect real-time data to boost
performance and effective workload management.
Customer service: Improve customer service throughreal-time information and analytics, predictive
maintenance, reduced latency, better data security, andpersonalized service delivery.
Work order optimization: For field service technicians,
optimize work order scheduling and routing to increase
efficiency and reduce travel times.
Improved sustainability: Promote ESG and a green
future by reducing cloud traffic, energy consumption,and carbon emissions with edge AI and local dataprocessing.

Lenovo and NVIDIA edge AI: The transformational technologies
driving innovations across the manufacturing industry
Computing: Lenovo offers a breadth of purpose-built and edge computing solutions to powerindustry-leading performance, security, and manageability.
Servers and storage: Lenovo ThinkEdge and ThinkSystem servers provide a full range ofruggedized, industry-leading solutions, delivering performance, security, and scalability at thecore, near edge, and far edge, backed by enterprise-grade support. Lenovo's easy-to-manage
storage offers compact flexibility and manageability, explicitly designed for edgeenvironments.
Kubernetes: Lenovo and NVIDIA offer a leading purpose-built solution for deploying,
managing, and monitoring applications at the edge. The NVIDIA GPU Operator and NVIDIA
Network Operator standardize and automate the deployment of all components forprovisioning Kubernetes clusters.
NVIDIA AI Enterprise: NVIDIA AI Enterprise is an end-to-end, cloud-native suite of AI and data
analytics software, optimized for every organization to excel at AI, certified to deploy on
Lenovo NVIDIA-Certified Systems, and includes global enterprise support so AI projects stayon track, allowing organizations to focus on harnessing the business value of AI.

EDGE AI SOLUTIONS FOR MANUFACTURERS
Supply Chain & Transportation

Smart Manufacturing
Predictive
Maintenance

Quality
Assurance

Real-time
Operational
Optimization

Inventory
Management

Route
Optimization

DemandForecasting

Industrial Field Services
On-siteDiagnosis
and Repair

WorkerSafety &Experience

RemoteMonitoring &Maintenance

AI LIBRARIES, TOOLKITS, AND CONTAINERS
NVIDIA Software Catalog (NGC)EDGE AI-READY TECHNOLOGY AND INFRASTRUCTURE
Virtualization Technology and Management
Hypervisors

Storagee.g. VMware ESXi

e.g. VMware, vSAN

Managemente.g. Lenovo XClarity, VMware vSphere

Lenovo Server & Edge TechnologyThinkEdge Clients &ThinkStation Workstations
e.g. SE70, P3

ThinkEdge Servers
e.g. SE360 V2, SE450

ThinkSystem Servers
e.g. SR630 V3, SR645 V3

Lenovo ThinkEdge and ThinkSystem solutions enabling edge AILenovo delivers NVIDIA-certified high-performance AI servers, digital twin-readyinfrastructure, and ruggedized edge servers as the foundation to edge AI solutions
for every industry.
Lenovo ThinkEdge SE70: ThinkEdge Clients (such as theSE70 shown) combine rugged utility and versatility forremote use at the far edge in locations such as factories,plants, and warehouses.
Lenovo ThinkEdge SE360 V2: Ruggedized, resilient Lenovo
ThinkEdge servers (such as the SE360 V2) offer AI-enabled
performance and robust security for the most challenging
environments. With a minimal acoustic footprint and optimalcooling, ThinkEdge servers drive agility, intelligence, andsustainability at the edge.
Lenovo ThinkEdge SE450: Is an advanced processor-based
server with a 2U height and short depth case that can goalmost anywhere. It can be hung on a wall, stacked on a shelf,or mounted in a rack. This rugged technology can handle
continuous operating temperatures from 5°C to 45°C, withdesigns configured to meet NEBS and ETSI requirements for
96-hour operating excursions from -5°C to 55°C as well as
tolerance for locations with high dust and vibration.

Why Lenovo and NVIDIA
Working in partnership with NVIDIA, Lenovo is developing world-changing
technologies to create a more efficient, connected, and digital society. By designing,
engineering, and building the world's most complete portfolio of innovative, AI-readydevices and infrastructure, Lenovo and NVIDIA are leading an Intelligent
Transformation — to create better experiences and opportunities for millions ofcustomers worldwide.
To find out more, visit https://www.lenovo.com/nvidia-edge-ai/.

© 2023 Lenovo. © 2023 NVIDIA Corporation. All rights reserved.
Trademarks: Lenovo, the Lenovo logo, ThinkSystem and ThinkEdge are trademarks or registered trademarks of Lenovo.
NVIDIA, the NVIDIA logo are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of NVIDIA Corporation in the U.S. and other countries.