Celanese Corporation, a global specialty materials and chemicals company, has deployed NTT DATA’s fully managed Private 5G network in two of its manufacturing facilities in Texas, Clearlake and Bishop. The goal is to modernize connectivity, enable Industry 4.0 use cases, and support secure, real-time operations at the edge.
When Signal Gaps Become Production Risk
Celanese operates in complex industrial environments where signal gaps, interference, and connectivity disruptions pose risks to continuous operations and logistics. Legacy or conventional wireless infrastructures may not guarantee the low-latency, reliable, and secure connectivity needed for advanced manufacturing use cases, and there is a need to integrate real-time data flows across the shop floor and upstream systems in a resilient way, all while ensuring worker safety, operational resilience, and responsiveness in high-stakes manufacturing environments.
The objectives were to establish a robust, private, high-speed connectivity backbone to support digital transformation and edge computing; provide seamless, secure access to critical data and digital tools for frontline teams; enable advanced automation, monitoring, and real-time analytics use cases in manufacturing and logistics; lay a foundation for future use cases, automation, AI, robotics, that require deterministic network performance; and improve operational efficiency, responsiveness, and safety across manufacturing workflows.
One Managed Network, Built by NTT DATA and Celona
NTT DATA delivered a fully managed Private 5G service tailored for Celanese’s industrial context, integrated into the two Celanese facilities in Texas. The setup offers secure, scalable connectivity that meshes with existing digital operations, edge infrastructure, and OT systems. As a managed service, NTT DATA takes responsibility for design, deployment, operation, and maintenance of the private network, built to support evolving use cases, automation, real-time analytics, smart devices, worker communication, on a connected, resilient foundation.
The network is operational at the Bishop facility, with deployment ongoing at Clearlake and plans to expand to other sites. NTT DATA has integrated the entire 5G stack, including Celona’s RAN and core components, into a unified, 24x7x365 managed service offering. The core network operates on-site, while network management and orchestration are handled through a cloud-based platform, an architecture designed to scale, with the potential to extend to additional Celanese facilities globally.
Two Edge AI Use Cases Already Taking Shape
Beyond the core connectivity backbone, the deployment is showcasing two future Edge AI use cases built on the network.
- Energy monitoring. Centralized energy monitoring today lacks real-time visibility and fast decision-making at the production level. Energy data from meters is currently sent to Cognite, but the raw-data-to-cloud-to-insights path creates latency in analysis, bandwidth overload, and no localized alerts.
- Pump monitoring. A domain-centric Edge AI-based pump monitoring system for centrifugal pumps, combining real-time analysis, motor health insights, and FMEA-driven, AI/ML-based fault prediction to enable predictive maintenance, increase uptime, and ensure safe and stable plant operations.
What Reliable Connectivity Buys the Frontline
The deployment delivers a specific set of operational gains for Celanese’s manufacturing teams:
- Reliable and resilient connectivity. The private 5G network helps overcome signal gaps or interference challenges, ensuring uninterrupted operations in critical zones.
- Secure, low-latency data access for frontline teams. Workers gain seamless access to digital tools, systems, and real-time insights.
- Accelerated digital transformation. With robust connectivity in place, Celanese can deploy advanced manufacturing, automation, and analytics workloads more confidently.
- Operational efficiency and responsiveness. The infrastructure supports real-time decision-making and enables continuous optimization of operations.
- Worker safety and communications. The network helps maintain reliable communication channels and supports safety-critical digital systems.
“Our collaboration with NTT DATA strengthens our ability to implement advanced connectivity solutions, enhancing responsiveness, safety and efficiency for frontline teams.” – Sameer Purao, SVP and CIO, Celanese
A Blueprint for Process-Intensive Industries
The deployment shows how chemical and specialty materials manufacturing, a domain with challenging environments, can successfully adopt private 5G to modernize operations. It acts as a reference model for other industrial companies looking to combine edge computing, connectivity, and digital transformation, and validates the role of private networks in advancing Industry 4.0, particularly where latency, reliability, and security are non-negotiable.
The deployment also encourages broader adoption of private 5G in highly regulated, process-intensive, or infrastructure-constrained settings. With these and other future use cases, operational excellence and cost effectiveness are expected to improve, along with safety standards.
Why Public Wireless Couldn’t Guarantee the Standard
Private 5G gives more predictable latency, throughput, and quality of service compared to public wireless options, deterministic performance that industrial environments require. As a private network, Celanese retains control over connectivity, data flows, and security policies, critical in industrial settings, and the architecture supports seamless scaling and adaptation as new digital use cases are introduced.
NTT DATA’s managed service model reduces the burden on Celanese’s internal teams and ensures specialized expertise in deployment and operations, while the solution is designed to integrate with existing OT/IT systems, edge compute, and automation frameworks already in place.
NTT DATA and Celona: Who Built What
NTT DATA handled design, deployment, and management of the Private 5G network for Celanese as a turnkey, fully managed offering, with 24x7x365 monitoring and support, ongoing operation and maintenance responsibilities for the network infrastructure, and solution integration ensuring seamless alignment with Celanese’s digital operations and industrial systems.
Celona serves as NTT DATA’s primary technology partner for the Private 5G solution deployed at Celanese, providing the foundational P5G product portfolio, including radio access network components and core network software that power the enterprise-grade infrastructure. Celona’s technology allows for end-to-end quality of service enforcement using its patented MicroSlicing, which ensures application- and device-level performance reliability. Celona’s deep domain expertise in wireless network innovation, combined with NTT DATA’s system integration and managed services capabilities, provides Celanese with a robust, secure, and scalable private mobile network that meets the high standards required for mission-critical operations.
