The interconnection and networking of production equipment in a factory environment is nothing new. First cables and then optical fibres have long since been the conduits for the downloading of production instructions and, for instance, the transmission of shopfloor status reports back to a central monitoring point.

But now the prospect of completely wireless communication for all types of production-related information is starting to establish itself as a real possibility with not just savings in physical infrastructure but also more rapid data transfer as primary objectives. The means will be the latest 5G communication technologies and one car maker now exploring the potential they offer is Škoda.