A Wireless LAN implementation is helping Jindal Strips maintain continuous connectivity and enable seamless information-capturing at its Hissar plant in Haryana. Shipra Arora delves into the philosophy behind this pilot project

Umesh vashishta says that every continuous process industry will look to wireless technology for seamless information capture

Everybody would vouch for the fact that information is critical to the efficient running of businesses in today’s economy. Especially so if it is the $1.5 billion giant steel conglomerate Jindal Organisation, ranked sixth amongst the top Indian business houses. Boasting of end-to-end integrated manufacturing processes with almost 60-70 per cent sourcing of raw material being done in-house, the need for capturing the right information at the right time is critical. And with information spreading across ever-expanding frontiers, capturing it became all the more difficult, thereby driving the need for higher-end technologies and more robust networks.

With wireless being chosen as the way forward, the group has recently initiated its pilot wireless project with a successful Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) implementation at the Hissar (Haryana) plant of its $260 million flagship company, Jindal Strips Limited (JSL). The portfolio of JSL includes products ranging from stainless steel hot-rolled/cold-rolled coils, plates and flats, to slabs and blooms.

But why wireless? Umesh Vashishta, CIO Corporate IT, explains that wireless is the technology that every continuous process industry will look up to for seamless information capturing. “Wireless can cater to the typical work environment and processes of our industry and this tilts the choice in favour of wireless,” he states. A consideration of the location, set-up, structure and work environment of JSL’s plant in Hissar throws adequate light on the need for, and the choice of, a wireless network for the plant.

As the plant grew and expanded, the Cold Rolled Division (CRD) of the plant was set up across the Delhi road from the HR and Administration Division (HRD). Apart from the main road separating the two, there is also a railway track in-between. According to Vashishta, the two divisions standing opposite each other across the road were connected through optic fibre, which went from HRD to CRD under the main road and railway track. “Though the job was done with the permission of government authorities after taking care of all safety requirements, with the government department digging the road from time to time, the vital communication links were lost, thus hampering connectivity,” he points out. Hence, the very first need was to establish a continuous and unbreakable communication link between two points across the road. The company concluded that wireless would be the best bet in terms of reliability and continuity of communication links.

Hostile environment
Further warranting the need for replacing the fibre optic LAN with a wireless setup was the unfriendly work environment within the plant premises. There are many points within the premises where traditional technology does not work. While optic fibre was laid wherever possible, there were still many points that had to be left uncovered. “The steel plants generally have furnaces of molten iron where the temperatures are very high. The hubs, switches and routers do not work properly under these conditions. Also, running the fibre through the furnaces and exposing them to such high temperatures increase the risk of damaging it,” Vashishta explains.

This made the capturing of critical information at the required points almost impossible, as the fibre could not reach them. And with expansion of operations, such critical points were growing increasingly. As the environmental factors could not be controlled, the next best option for the IT team was to upgrade to an alternative network technology. And wireless turned out to be the option best suited for such an environment because of its ability to capture critical information at even the unfriendliest of capturing points (locations).

WLAN objectives
Hence the following were the purposes and objectives of setting up the WLAN:

1. To have contingency in the connectivity between HRD and CRD over the fibre optic link and not substitute it.

2. To have LAN connectivity in the plant area without disturbing the civil and mechanical settings.

3. To have mobility in the network point, because in the plant, the point movement is high and corresponds to the functionality of the plant.

The WLAN solution deployed at JSL’s Hissar plant includes 3Com 11 Mbps Ethernet Wireless LAN Building to Building Bridge, Omni Direction Antenna, Directional Antenna and Air Connect 11 Mbps WLAN, Air Connect Wireless PCI Card, 40B CR-E1. In addition to this certain security measures have also been deployed. Undertaken by Infovergix Technologies, an IT venture of the Jindal Organisation operating in the space of networking solutions, the WLAN project spanned across three months, of which the first two months were taken up by clearing all the licensing procedures.

Wireless advantages
In terms of advantages of wireless over the wired network, Vashishta points out that the biggest advantage of wireless is its ability to overcome space constraints, thereby removing all growth restrictions. Hence, now there is no constraint for the plant to grow in a certain direction only as per the communication requirements. With just a WLAN card, a computer can be set up wherever required, circumventing location-specific obstacles.

On the cost front, Vashishta finds that wireless technology is more cost-effective than fibre when it comes to day-to-day running costs. “Even though the upfront investment into a WLAN is more than the fibre-optic alternative, it is recovered over a period of a few months, as the running cost of wireless is almost nil,” he explains.

On the performance front too, the solution has been trouble-free, with no major hiccups or breakdowns. In fact, Vashishta feels that wireless boasts of better reliability in terms of efficiency and performance uptime. The cumulative result of all these benefits, explains Vashishta, impacts the core competency itself through cost savings and other improved efficiencies. While it is as yet premature to measure the exact benefits of the wireless initiative, the company is optimistic of wireless playing an increasingly critical role in streamlining the entire communication process as the capturing points grow.

While wireless technology has its own set of advantages, Vashishta feels that there are still certain issues facing the technology, the biggest of which includes the licensing procedures. “Though now things are quite streamlined, there are still many hurdles involved in the government procedures, which need to be dealt with,” he adds.

Expansion plans
Currently in the pilot phase one or two points have been connected in APII & APIII (divisions for the Annealing Pickling process in the manufacture of steel), Blade steel and Coin Blanking Mill. According to Vashishta, in the future more points will be established in the plant. “If the location is within the range of the access point, only adding a PC with a wireless network card is required,” explains Vashishta. Jindal Organisation is next contemplating setting up a WLAN network in the Raigarh plant of Jindal Steel & Power Ltd, the coal-based sponge iron manufacturing company of the Jindal group.