Furukawa restructures to seize IoT, mining opportunities in LatAm

Japan's Furukawa Electric, one of the world's main suppliers of industrial cables and optical fiber, has restructured its business in Latin America and created a new IoT unit to better seize opportunities related to the digital transformation of industries.

The newly launched Furukawa IoT for Industry System, or FI²S, will contemplate a series of launches that Furukawa plans to carry out this year and is expected to expand the company's operations to new markets, according to Mariana Balan, head of the energy product engineering and IoT area at Furukawa LatAm.

In addition to the new unit, the cabling business was revamped with connectivity and intelligence features to meet mission-critical environments of, among others, extractive industries.

“We are very focused on manufacturing. In IoT, we will start in manufacturing, but IoT will be able to be applied in several verticals. And in cabling, we are adding the mission critical capabilities, for mining companies, for example,” Balan told BNamericas, emphasizing that the mining focus is particularly on the Andean markets. “In Brazil, mining ends up being concentrated in a few companies,” she added.

Both the IoT business and the new cabling solutions are under the structure of the Furukawa Industrial Systems (FIS) unit.

The restructuring began in 2018 and over the past two years the company has been working on developing innovative solutions, Balan said. 

A first IoT application pilot is being implemented with a wholesale fiber optic network operator in Brazil.

They are sensors that use LORA (Long Range) connectivity technology to measure the optical power of the cable, all with a cloud-based platform to monitor the operation and maintenance of the network, said Balan.

Furukawa has taskforce teams in Mexico and the Southern Cone for the new sensor operation and it is reinforcing the commercial and technical staff in those countries, she added.

THEFT OF SENSORS

In addition to the telecom and manufacturing sectors, another focus of the Furukawa IoT unit is agribusiness. 

In this area, the company plans to work in partnership with integrators specialized in the installation of wireless networks in these environments.

One of the main drivers of the IoT business for the agribusiness sector has been increased theft of sensors in rural environments.

The equipment is often vulnerable to vandalism in the fields and the technology developed by Furukawa sends an alert to clients if a sensor was moved from one place to another, Balan said.

INVESTMENTS

Furukawa LatAm, whose main operation is in Brazil, plans to invest at least 71mn reais (US$13mn) in its operations this year.

The figure is higher than the 65mn reais invested in 2020 and refers only to capex, or expenditures related to the acquisition of assets, machinery and other items to expand production.

Overall, 75% of the company's regional sales are concentrated in Brazil, where it has factories in Curitiba, Sorocaba and Santa Rita do Sapucaí.

Furukawa also has optical cable factories in Berazategui, Argentina (opened in 2008), Palmira, Colombia (2015), and Mexicali, Mexico (2017).

The company's main competitors are Italy’s Prysmian and Chinese firms like FiberHome.