BURGOS, Spain – Campofrio Food Group recently cut the ribbon on its new “connected factory” in Burgos, Spain.

The “New Bureba” plant replaces an older facility that was gutted by fire in 2014. The fire forced the evacuation of the building and residents living near the facility. The plant has a gross surface area of 99,000 sq. m., and will produce an estimated 101,400 tons of food products per year. But driving production at the plant is ‘smart’ technology that connects machines, devices, sensors and people in real-time.

“Upon a great effort made by our employees, customers and partners, we’ve created one of the most advanced food manufacturing plants in Europe,” Javier Álvarez, CIO at Campofrío Food Group, said in a statement. “Designing our ‘New Bureba’ facility with connectivity at its core, we are confident to have a Factory 4.0 blueprint that will help us in continuing to demonstrate excellence through innovation, competitive pricing and rapid time to market.”

In Spain, the Bureba plant represents the first implementation of Cisco’s Connected Factory technology which features:

• Information Technology/Operational Technology convergence. Converging IT and OT networks through ethernet and IP allows Campofrío to securely interconnect machines across the plant over a highly secure, reliable and integrated platform, according to Cisco. This design streamlines processes, ensures quality production and increases time to innovation.
• Real-time monitoring and analytics. The Cisco Connected Factory solution provides an automated interface between enterprise and control systems which enables real-time monitoring and analytics. This architecture gives Campofrío improved control of the plant, increased efficiency and flexibility, less downtime and higher productivity cycles.
• Increased security. The Connected Factory technology improves overall company security for both digital and physical assets by closely controlling on-premise and remote access to plant networks by user, device and location.
• Partner ecosystem. Cisco Advanced Services worked in partnership with Aryse, Vodafone and Bluefish to deliver access, wireless and industrial Ethernet technologies and to establish the unified converged infrastructure.

“To stay competitive, manufacturers need to create an expanded, adaptable network infrastructure that connects IT systems with the plant floor and get monitoring and analytics in real-time,” Jesús Mansilla, enterprise manager at Cisco Spain, said in a statement. “The digital manufacturing foundation delivered by Cisco Connected Factory is a great example of the ‘Industrial Internet of Things’ in action.”