Streamlined Installation Process for Ericsson Enterprise Core

Abstract

Companies all over the world are now preparing the transition towards the next milestone of modern industrialization: Industry 4.0. One key factor in enabling this leap is the new fth-generation (5G) mobile networking technology. Ericsson Enterprise Core (EEC), is a private 5G mobile network solution; offering bigger industrial complexes a complete network infrastructural package { enabling them to utilize this the new technology. The number of installations of EEC solutions is expected to increase in the oncoming years, as the number of sold units goes up. This installation can be quite complicated however and has so far only been conducted by experienced members of staff. To enable more personnel at the company to be able to conduct the installation, the process has to be simplifed and shortened compared to today. This faster and simplifed installation process is referred to as the 'Streamlined Installation Process for Ericsson Enterprise Core', which also is the title and goal of this master's thesis { conducted at Ericsson Lindholmen, Gothenburg, during the spring of 2020. A series of interviews were held with EEC installation instruction creators and EEC installers at Ericsson to reveal hurdles in the current installation process and why these had arisen. The result indicated a necessity for installers to possess extensive telecommunication knowledge to be able to fully conduct the installation process. This included, for example, Packet Core structure, 3GPP standard, and orientation with server hardware. A discrepancy in the instruction creators' and the installers' opinion was noted, regarding whether the documentation structure was intuitive. Finally, the two groups agreed upon the diffculties an installer can have with installation completion verifcation, where the installed instance has to be connected to real-time traffic in order for its functionality to be fully verifed. The methodology Design Thinking was used to ideate, produce, and test new instructions that enabled a more elective installation of the EEC solution. Included in the thesis is the result { a conceptual prototype on how the EEC instructions could be further supported to reach the goal stated above.