Turbomeca selects Siemon TERA for new headquarters

Mantes-Buchelay, near Paris, is now the location of Turbomeca’s 12,400 sqm hub for high precision mechanics activities, including the design, manufacture and assembly of hydromechanical components and accessories for oil and fuel systems for helicopter engines, as well as the manufacture of hydromechanical components for military aircraft engines. This new site houses a 320-strong workforce in administration and production, with scope to accommodate more staff in the future.

Selim Caluwaerts, Turbomeca’s IT manager at Buchelay, explained his goal for the new plant’s IT systems: “It was my vision to equip Mantes-Buchelay with an IT infrastructure of the future – an infrastructure flexible enough to support a growing business, a growing number of network users; ready to handle increased network traffic and data throughputs, including video and high speed applications.”

Besides specifying flexibility, performance and future proofing for the site’s new cabling system, security was also high on Turbomeca’s agenda. Working closely with military organisations, the manufacturer’s information security manager needed to ensure that they worked to the same standards as their business partners. These standards included strict rules on data security.

TERA addressed the data security aspect raised by the Information Security department as it is the only copper cabling system that has been certified for use in Tempest rated environments. The fully shielded system has a quadrant style connector interface which minimises alien crosstalk to ensure the highest performance parameters. It is therefore well suited to support next generation applications beyond 10GBASE-T and is capable of supporting all channels of broadband video.

Based on extensive testing, Turbomeca selected Siemon’s fully shielded 10Gb/s Ethernet category 7A cabling as Selim Caluwaerts explained: “For us TERA ticked all the boxes. With a product lifecycle of 20 years we can be sure that our IT requirements will be supported on day one and also in the years to come. In this sense, TERA provides an excellent return on investment.”

During the installation process approximately 150km of category 7A TERA 1000 MHz S/FTP cable was laid with 1300 TERA outlets and a 10Gb/s single mode fibre optic backbone installed to deliver up to 10 Gigabit Ethernet from telecoms rooms to the production hall, design and administration. To meet environmental aims, the new site was designed in accordance with the Low Energy Consumption Building (Bâtiment Basse Consommation) initiative and meets the High Environmental Quality (Haute Qualité Environnementale) building criteria.

The last word on the new installation goes to Selim: “We are confident that our vision of a world-class, future-proof manufacturing site has been realised and we know that this investment in the highest performing copper cabling system will support the business to excel well into the future.”