Italian tile maker Del Conca deploys private LTE/5G from Celona at Tennessee plant

Nov 08, 2023

The US division of Italian porcelain and tile manufacturer Del Conca Group has deployed a CBRS-based private LTE/5G system at a large production facility in Loudon, in Tennessee. It has selected US private wireless specialist Celona for the new deployment, which covers 30-odd acres of indoor and outdoor space. The system is being used to connect automated mobile systems and connected workers, among other use cases, it said.

Network reliability and control ("determinism") were behind its decision to go with cellular over legacy Wi-Fi, it added. Luca Chichiarelli, head of IT operations at the firm, said: "Network downtime and disruption of expensive plant systems is a killer that can result in a material loss of revenue and productivity as well as delays in bringing products to market… We’ve overcome many of these issues and still haven't found the limits of the technology."

A press note said Del Conca is using the new network to "automate and streamline" operations in Tennessee, where it makes tile for residential and commercial venues. It is being used by workers outside of the firm's manufacturing and warehousing facilities to connect via handheld tablets to its backend management systems – specifically to "control inventory flows, check materials, verify shipping instructions, and confirm orders".

Indoors, on the production line, workers are using it to report problems with equipment, quality control issues, and other production-related issues. Also indoors, Del Conca's fleet of automated guided vehicles (AGVs) and forklifts are connecting over private cellular to place and pick pallets of Italian tile across different parts of the production line. Del Conca said it will expand usage to support video streaming.

It said it will deploy machine vision technologies to monitor "critical production processes", and also establish "critical voice communications between production line workers", as well as a neutral host networking model to "better extend public carrier cellular services across its operations". The firm operates four manufacturing plants in Italy and the US; there is no word on whether it will expand private LTE/5G usage with Celona into other sites.

As an explanation of the decision to go with cellular, the firm noted the complexity of its Tennessee facility; "littered with industrial machines, congested areas, metal and other wireless obstacles that impede signals". It said that Wi-Fi, used to connect critical systems until now, suffers from "constant maintenance, reliability issues, and coverage problems". The Celona solution includes edge software, private SIMs/eSIMs, and cloud orchestration.

The statement, actually issued by Celona, commented: "With its existing Wi-Fi network, Del Conca would often see weak signal strength below -80dBm that wouldn't allow its AGVs or forklifts to maintain or even establish a reliable connections to their respective PLCs, industrial computer systems used to control different electro-mechanical or automated equipment. With Celona's private wireless system these issues have been effectively eliminated."

It said cellular uses wider frequency bands and a more efficient signal processing mechanism to adjust their transmission power and dynamically allocate resources to maintain a stable connection even when the signal is weak. Celona's cloud-based network operating system offers visibility and control across the entire infrastructure.

"The switch… has been a real game changer for us," said Chichiarelli.

"Using less equipment at a lower capital and operational cost, Celona has delivered a more pervasive and reliable wireless environment on which our production systems can depend. The promise of a… cellular system we could own, operate, and control ourselves was a compelling proposition. We wanted an end-to-end solution that would tightly integrate with our existing IT systems, IP domains, and policy structures… [and] Celona was the only viable choice."

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