Integration of automation and industrial IT for a new production facility 

Bacthera's new seven-storey production building in Visp (VS, CH) is used for the production of living biotherapeutic products (LBPs). An efficient control system (DCS) and a secure IT/OT infrastructure are essential for production.  

CTE was responsible for the design and commissioning of the systems required to meet both the production and office requirements. The contract included the following requirements: 

• Highly available and secure network 

• WLAN on the whole area 

• Virtualisation (highly available) 

• Backup system for infrastructure and package units 

• Network integration of the package units 

• Monitoring the package units 

• Reporting of the package units 

• Controlling the pure water supply 

• Alarm interface incl. SMS notification 

CTE configured 110 access points and provided IT sockets to supply the entire production building with wireless. The network infrastructure was based on reliable CISCO components. A redundant virtualisation cluster was set up to provide various virtual machines for domain, file server or RTDS (Real Time Data Services), enabling real-time monitoring and control of the production processes . 

The IT infrastructure in the industrial environment (OT) had to comply with the strict GMP guidelines of the pharmaceutical industry. This required the implementation of jumphosts to allow package unit suppliers remote maintenance access, and to coordinate and implement the integration of around 14 package units into the OT system. 

Based on an evaluation, Bacthera opted for the zenon system from COPA-DATA as its DCS. This system offers flexibility and scalability with low hardware and installation costs. The DCS monitors GMP equipment, pure water production and communication with various package units, as well as the building. 

The successful implementation of this project shows CTE's ability to integrate complex requirements in the areas of automation, OT and IT from a single source. Bacthera and CTE are amazed by the result achieved and CTE is looking forward to continuing the successful cooperation.