Orange Business and Nokia deploy a Private Mobile Network in the Butachimie Factory of the Future

Butachimie is a major manufacturer of polymer intermediates for nylon. To modernize its facilities and optimize production, it chose Orange Business and Nokia to deploy a Private Mobile Network at its Chalampé plant in Alsace, France. This Private Mobile Network will be the backbone of Butachimie's digital transformation project.

A network designed to meet the challenges of Industry 4.0

Butachimie wanted to digitize its business processes, starting with security of the site and its data, followed by the deployment of new use cases. To anticipate the needs and challenges of its Factory of the Future, Orange Business designed a fully redundant and secure 4G Private Mobile Network (upgradable to 5G).

This 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.

According to Stéphane Cazabonne, Project Director at Butachimie: “Our digital transformation and modernization 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 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.”

Co-construction based on specific use cases

From the start of the project, Orange Business 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 (within a meter), push-to-talk with intercom, digitization 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 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 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.

Edouard Castellant

Edouard Castellant
Edouard Castellant has the responsibility of Nokia Enterprise sales in France. He is a seasoned leader in the Telecom Industry with international experience across Product Management, Marketing, Business Development and Sales roles.

Denis De Douas
Denis de Drouâs

As Director of the Private Radio Networks program at Orange Business, Denis leads activity around Mobile Private Networks and Mission Critical Services (e.g. PMR services) based on 4G/5G technology. Previously, as Director of Innovative Projects, he was responsible for identifying and launching innovative projects for the enterprise market. Before that, as Marketing Director, he was in charge of mobile and convergent offers for SoHo and Enterprise customers.