• Valmet has developed and implemented a scalable private network solution for its production facilities together with Telia and Digita. The solution enables Valmet to develop industrial internet applications for production and maintenance.

The private network provides Valmet with a reliable and safe mobile platform that it can use to further develop capabilities such as intelligent production, maintenance, safety and wireless intralogistics automation. From the outset, the solution was designed to be scalable globally, and private network capacity can be shared between adjacent production facilities using SD-WAN networking.

Matias Majaharju, Director of IT Infrastructure and End User Computing at Valmet, says: “We expect private networks to improve Valmet’s capability to develop factory operations to meet ever-growing business requirements. Flexibility, speed, availability, and security of the solution mean a lot to us.”

A private network is a mobile network that operates independently and is separate from the public mobile network. In a private network environment, the customer’s critical communications are fully secured, and all mobile technology features that support industrial automation, such as massive capacity and low latency, are fully available to the customer.

Kaisa Pajari, Head of B2B Networking and Communication Services at Telia, says: “More and more Finnish pioneering companies are adopting private networks to improve production efficiency and develop operations. Private networks applied to automation open up new opportunities for industry, and Valmet as a leading company sets a great example for the industry and its customers as digitalization solutions are applied in practice.”

Valmet’s private network is based on the Nokia Digital Automation Cloud. The solution can be expanded to meet the needs of the company’s offices and customers in Finland and around the world. In the private network, 4.9G/LTE and 5G technologies are used as needed. The first part of the solution was implemented at Valmet’s facilities in Tampere in 2022.

Private networks are at the heart of digitalizing production

As the manufacturing industry and industrial production are digitalized, the number of different automation solutions and robotics increases in factories and production facilities. Increasing amounts of data are collected from production processes – for example, to support decision-making when various machines and devices join the network.

In telecommunications, wireless networks play a key role, and a private network creates the conditions for transferring data reliably and comprehensively even in challenging industrial environments, both between machines and to support and facilitate human activities. In addition to usability and availability, data security and the protection of critical data are becoming increasingly important, and the key advantage of a private network is precisely the protection of confidential information.