Butachimie Factory of the Future looking to 5G private mobile network

Butachimie
Butachimie Factory of the Future. (Image credit: Butachimie)

Butachimie, a major manufacturer of polymer intermediates for nylon, has chosen Orange Business Services and Nokia to deploy a Private Mobile Network at its Chalampé plant in Alsace, France, to modernise its facilities and optimise production. The new Private Mobile Network will be the backbone of Butachimie's digital transformation project.

As Butachimie wanted to digitise its business processes, starting with security of the site and its data, followed by the deployment of new use cases, Orange Business Service designed a secure 4G Private Mobile Network, which crucially is upgradable to 5G, anticipating the needs and challenges of this factory of the future. 

Tailor-made private network

The tailor-made private network is based on Nokia's core network and Radio Access Network (RAN) solutions. This ensures Butachimie teams have controlled and efficient access to IT applications and will be able to use new services through wireless connected equipment in real time. Both the equipment and the data collected will have a high level of network availability, greater than 99.99%, making it possible to anticipate failures and ensure continuous production within the plant.

“Benefit from the performance and advantages of technology such as 5G.”

Stéphane Cazabonne, Butachimie.

“Our digital transformation and modernisation plan must meet very strict challenges in terms of security and availability. It is therefore essential for us to be able to rely on trusted partners capable of offering us technological robustness, tailor-made support and a strong knowledge of our businesses and associated uses. Thanks to Orange Business Services and Nokia, we are opening a new stage towards the development of our Factory of the Future by offering our employees a better on-site experience and by securing our performance and competitiveness in our sector. With this scalable network, we will eventually be able to benefit from the performance and advantages of technology such as 5G,” said Stéphane Cazabonne, Project Director at Butachimie. 

Use cases

From the start of the project, Orange Business Services and Butachimie experts set up a co-construction approach, particularly in the design of industrial use cases, adapted to the specific challenges of the plant. Several use cases were selected, including real-time geolocation, push-to-talk with intercom, digitisation of processes and a tool to manage the plant’s communication devices.

With its expertise in mobile networks, cybersecurity and business application development, Orange Business Services is well placed to provide consulting and technical support on end-to-end network management and use cases around Industry 4.0. Starting with the design stage, Orange Business Services took into account the scalability of the Private Mobile Network, in particular by designing an architecture adapted to Mobile Edge Computing. This 4G private mobile network is the backbone for all future applications currently under development as part of the Butachimie digital transformation project.

Rachael Sharpe

Rachael is a British journalist with 17 years experience in the publishing industry. Since launching www.digitalcameraworld.com, she’s been freelancing, and working for some of the world’s best-loved websites and magazines including T3.com and TechRadar.com and has also had a book, iPad for Photographers, published. A regular contributor at 5Gradar, Rachael is following the 5G market closely. Find out more at www.rachaelsharpe.com