The world's leading thread and zipper supplier, Coats, has an ongoing requirement to keep its operations running as efficiently as possible. This includes investments in industrial process machinery, as well as in IT, which helps the company's administrative staff work as effectively as possible.

The company's Indian subsidiary, Madura Coats manufactures and markets a complete range of cotton, synthetic, and corespun threads both for the Indian market as well as export. The company operates through two divisions, Coats India and Global Thread Supply.

Within India, Coats India's business includes 21 sales offices and six manufacturing units, which are strategically positioned near major textile manufacturing markets, its products include industrial and domestic haberdashery, interlinings, zippers, and needlecraft. Also, Global Thread Supply provides gray thread to Coats group companies around the world.

At its site in the southern town of Ambasamudram, Coats India has more than 500 employees working across six separate buildings. And to improve their ability to work together, the company sought to introduce the fastest possible network so that its employees could get faster access to the company's core SAP enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform.

“We have a strong requirement for fast and effective communication within India and around the world,” says Ferdinand Vaz, manager, Information Management, Coats India.

Increasing network speed was also critical to meet the challenges of hyper-connectivity, in which everything that can be connected to the network is inter-connected. Hyper-connectivity will lead to pressure on bandwidth, and to take full advantage of hyper-connectivity, the networks carrying the data must be designed for high reliability, robustness, and scalability. The company believed that with a fast and pervasive network, its workforce would be well positioned to take advantage of new bandwidth-intensive technologies such as videoconferencing, VoIP, and unified communications.

The resulting network needed to be readily available and provide reliable connections between hundreds of nodes spread across many physical sites. Finally, as part of its long-term vision of mobile application access, Coats India also wanted to provide Wi-Fi connectivity within all administration and public areas.

The Way Forward
To meet Coats India's requirement for a high-speed, reliable network, Nortel proposed a network structure that would enable delivery of gigabit Ethernet to every desktop computer in the Ambasamudram factory site.

Serving both service providers and enterprise customers, Nortel works in areas of broadband, VoIP, multimedia services, applications, and wireless broadband services.

Further, providing so many gigabit Ethernet end-points required a powerful back-end network, capable of carrying a large volume of aggregate bandwidth. To manage this network, Coats India required intelligent switching solutions capable of managing peaks that could run into tens or hundreds of gigabits of data per second.

Nortel delivered this massive bandwidth with several gigabit Ethernet switches that provide a completely redundant network infrastructure. At the core of this network is a pair of enterprise routing switch (ERS), 5530 switches, stackable devices that provide core routing, and switching capabilities with up to 160 Gbps aggregate bandwidth. Together, the switches can handle traffic peaks of up to 320 Gbps-more than enough to meet the present and future bandwidth demands of the company's applications.

“Installation of a new, resilient, and high-speed network will ensure that our employees take full advantage of the power of unified messaging, videoconferencing, VoIP, and other multimedia applications that empower them to communicate and collaborate better,” says Vaz.

Reliability and availability of lan at Madura Coats, Ambasamudram, has improved substantially with Nortel's multi-tiered deployment and provided faster access to vital business applications Samson Vetharaj, manager, Information Management, Madura Coats

The solution also included Nortel ERS 1612G and 3510 distribution switches, which connect to the ERS 5530s to distribute the core bandwidth around the campus. In addition, Nortel BES1010-24T edge switches deliver gigabit Ethernet connection to desktop computers. Five Nortel BAP120 Wi-Fi access points have also been installed on the network, providing wireless access across administrative and public-access areas.

Key Advantages
The solution has provided a robust and reliable end-to-end gigabit Ethernet network that is capable of providing more than enough bandwidth to meet Coats India's requirements well into the future.

Better online collaboration carries its own benefits, including reduced communication cost, and enhances the productivity and effectiveness of employees. To support their use of collaborative technology, Coats' investment in Nortel has delivered a reliable network that is running 24x7 without any performance degradation. With the modern network infrastructure it has installed at its newest manufacturing location, Coats India is in a strong position to maintain its leadership position within India, and to strengthen its role as a supplier of related products to other Coats subsidiaries around the world.

As the operation continues to grow, Coats plans to implement more sophisticated solutions that will pave the way to a completely new modus of working. Specialized design applications and CAD/CAM systems are also planned for the near future, all of which will run faster and more smoothly with the company's high-speed connectivity. The company is also planning a full VoIP implementation, as well as an expansion of wireless LAN that will let its workforce access VoIP and other unified communications services wherever they travel within the Coats India campus.

When it comes to network infrastructure, many companies settle for 100 Mbps desktop connections thinking they will never need more bandwidth. But when planning for the future, it is important for any company to provide as much growing room as possible, so that the network never becomes a hindrance to business growth.

By implementing gigabit Ethernet throughout its newest site, Coats India has ensured that it is well positioned to benefit from a whole new generation of rich collaborative applications, and to meet the needs of a hyper-connected world.

Gagandeep Kaur
gagandeepk@cybermedia.co.in