Glanbia Ireland, Three Ireland and Ericsson recently announced a new strategic partnership to increase manufacturing efficiency at our cheese plant in Ballyragget by installing an indoor 5G network. The new 5G network at Glanbia Ireland’s largest facility is the first implementation of its kind in a live manufacturing environment in Ireland.

Through this innovative ‘Internet of Things’ (IoT) pilot programme, GI is working with Three and Ericsson to demonstrate how 5G technology can be used in manufacturing environments to enable faster and more accurate maintenance tasks, assist with problem solving, provide richer analysis of plant processes and reduce manual administration.

The new indoor 5G network will bring greater connectivity and data security, allowing Glanbia to trial AR and VR applications and test how 5G can provide enhanced connectivity solutions for their wider production facilities.

Brian Farrell, Engineering Manager at Ballyragget said: “We’re delighted to be involved in this groundbreaking initiative with Three Ireland and Ericsson. It’s allowing us to bring to life some of the early learnings from our participation in an EU-funded Horizon 2020 5G project. It emphasises the importance of networks as an enabler for Digital Industrial Transformation and it will accelerate the trial and adoption of some innovative Industry 4.0 use cases for us.”

The project has been a hugely collaborative effort, with many people across Glanbia contributing vital knowledge and expertise to get it to this point. Managed and driven by MES Manager Michael Power from the outset, key contributors include Luke McCormack (GBS – MES), Paul Dunne (GI Maintenance) and Deirdre Ní Mhuiri’s Network Team. There’s also been great support from the engineering and IT teams in Ballyragget – Matthew O’Donnell, Brian Lannon and Marie McCormack. Darren Bambrick (GBS) and Seamus Norris (GBS) have worked on the mobile maintenance application.