Optech Fibres were tasked to survey, design and implement the backbone cabling for Coca Cola’s upgraded Control System at their production plant in Wakefield.
When Coca Cola Enterprises required an upgrade to their Control Systems Network at their large manufacturing facility in Wakefield in 2007, Optech Fibres were tasked with providing a design, which met both the immediate and long-term requirements. Optech needed to understand the potentially future expansion of the systems and held discussions with Tritec Systems, Coca Cola’s Controls Network maintainers, which allowed for the formulation of a design to provided a cost effective solution, balancing the need to integrate with existing working equipment, while also providing a future upgrade path.
Following site surveys a location was agreed upon for the main distribution centre for the fibre network, the position was critical in the choice of cable, which was to be OM3 grade optical fibre. This allowed the existing 10/100Base FX hardware to be re-used on the new infrastructure, while providing the ability to upgrade to Gigabit Ethernet as required. The choice of OM3 not only allowed for the phased move to Gigabit Technology, but also provided a further opportunity to upgrade links between main production cabinets and the Main Computer Room to 10Gigabit Ethernet, due to the positioning of the Fibre Distribution Centre.
Once the design was agreed upon, which included 2 No diversely routed 48 core links between the Main Computer Room and the Fibre Distribution Centre and connections out to 9 No remote production cabinets, routes had to be confirmed to prevent disruption to production areas and prevent any possibility of product contamination. Existing containment was used where possible; however some of the new routes required the installation of galvanised cable tray, which was undertaken by Optech engineers to reduce the likelihood of damage to the cables in supporting them over the length of the runs.
Optech engineers completed the installation on time and in line with Coca Cola’s stringent Health and Safety requirements. It was commented upon that Optech’s wiliness to be flexible and fit with the clients needs allowed for the installation to be completed with the minimum of fuss and with no requirement for production downtime.
