Talk to our experts
Talk to our experts
Worms-Technical-Center

Röchling Automotive Case Study

Download resource in

Highlights at a glance

  • Transition from MPLS to Managed SD‑WAN led to increased bandwidth by 50% and incident reduction of 20% across 40 global sites spanning four continents
  • Simplified and efficient integration of sites while easing the workload of the company’s IT department
  • Met industry compliance standards with data encryption (ISO27001)

Share on

Jump to:

Rochling logo

Röchling Automotive, a leading automotive supplier, is now reaping the benefit of their digital transformation with the help of managed service provider GTT.

Röchling Automotive unlocked a highperformance, secure, and highly reliable network solution that leverages GTT Managed SD‑WAN and Cloud Connect.

This strategic collaboration has empowered the company’s drive toward the digitizing of its business workflows. The result is enhanced efficiency and security.

17

Countries covered

5500+

Worldwide employees

40

Locations

€1.1B+

Annual revenue

Automotive supplier Röchling, part of the Röchling Group, is a significant development partner within the global automotive industry. The company offers plastic components and system solutions for four product areas: battery manufacturing, lightweight construction, aerodynamics and propulsion. With the vision “We drive sustainable mobility,” the company has also developed a sustainability strategy that increasingly focuses on bioplastics, recycled materials and battery components.

With production facilities across four continents – North and South America, Europe, and Asia – Röchling Automotive operates in more than 40 locations, spanning 17 countries. Thanks to an expansive global network, the enterprise continues to deliver efficient customer service on a worldwide scale. Now, the company is transforming to meet the demand of the ever‑evolving e‑mobility landscape, shifting toward alternative propulsion technology. The company faced the challenge of reorienting and digitizing its business processes. A resilient, robust IT infrastructure allowing interconnectivity between sites provides critical visibility into operations and facilitates communication between sites that handle their own production streams.

The challenge

“In order to secure our company’s global expansion, we faced the challenge of modernizing our currently centralized network. The goal was to establish stable and high‑performance connections among the growing number of locations,” says Christian Mall, IT Manager, Network & Data Center Global at Röchling Automotive. “Staying connected to 40 locations, most of them handling their own production, is critical. Stakeholders must have visibility into any one of dozens of issues that could affect the production schedule. Downtime at any point in the process, for any reason, may cause interruption in delivery or supply chain challenges that affect our customers. Moreover, with the continuous march toward digitization and the advent of Industry 4.0,1 direct integrations of production facilities have become increasingly essential.”

Integrating new sites regardless of technology

From 2020, Röchling Automotive has been equipped with a high-performance and reliable enterprise network utilizing GTT Managed SD‑WAN, enabling seamless integration of new sites with agnostic technology which is a top priority for Röchling Automotive.

Maximum security

To ensure maximum security, the company has implemented a two-level approach, combining the robust GTT-managed firewall with additional infrastructure, such as virtual firewalls, tailored to each location’s specific needs, including encryption protocols based on ISO standards to ensure the safe exchange of sensitive data between Röchling Automotive and its valued customers.

Maintain agility and efficiency

To maintain agility and efficiency, a global configuration platform empowers the dedicated four-member IT team at Röchling Automotive to easily adjust site‑specific settings as needed.

To address this challenge, Röchling Automotive sought the expertise of GTT and implemented Managed SD‑WAN. This comprehensive approach connects all the sites securely, and deploys and manages their connectivity to the central data center in Germany and to the Röchling Echo Cloud, which enables a variety of important productivity‑enhancing cloud services. “With GTT as our trusted partner, we ensure dependable and efficient global networking between our sites, propelling our digital transformation forward,” says Mall.

Security was the next key component of the project The external data exchanged between Röchling Automotive’s development department and its customers raised concerns about security, prompting the need for encryption measures. Connecting new sites according to each unique requirement with efficiency and flexibility was an integral part of the partnership with GTT.

“We had to address how to leverage the latest security posture in a flexible manner despite limited internal resources, and with customized solutions for each location,” explains Mall.

“Thanks to GTT’s Tier 1 IP backbone, global presence, and hundreds of Points of Presence (POPs), we now enjoy a dynamic, reliable, and efficient network. This allows us to push forward with the digitalization of our globally dispersed business processes.”

Christian Mall – IT Manager, Network & Data Center Global, Röchling Automotive

The solution

From 2020, Röchling Automotive has been equipped with a high‑performance and reliable enterprise network utilizing GTT Managed SD‑WAN. “GTT handles the management, connectivity, monitoring, and support of our global network entirely, which was crucial for us due to our limited internal resources,” explains Mall. Thanks to a highly redundant infrastructure landscape, flexible allocation, and prioritization, 40 sites worldwide are connected, along with an externally hosted data center and cloud services. For efficient cloud utilization, Röchling Automotive deployed GTT Cloud Connect, ensuring performance optimized, secure, and cost‑effective connections to the manufacturer’s Microsoft Azure cloud services.

“The network’s high performance and availability proved valuable during the pandemic when an increasing number of business processes transitioned to virtual environments. Moreover, the SD‑WAN solution supports us in implementing Industry 4.0, having transformed our production facilities into smart factories.”

Christian Mall – IT Manager, Network & Data Center Global, Röchling Automotive

The results

Integrating new sites — regardless of technology

Enabling seamless integration of new sites with agnostic technology is a top priority for Röchling Automotive. To ensure maximum security, the company has implemented a two‑level approach, combining the robust GTT‑managed firewall with additional infrastructure, such as virtual firewalls, tailored to each location’s specific needs, including encryption protocols based on ISO standards to ensure the safe exchange of sensitive data between Röchling Automotive and its valued customers.

To maintain agility and efficiency, a global configuration platform empowers the dedicated four‑member IT team at Röchling Automotive to easily adjust site‑specific settings as needed.

The leading automotive supplier values GTT’s capability to connect to new sites, especially those in regions with unique challenges — such as remote areas in India where conventional fiber‑based internet connections are limited and reliance on radio‑based solutions is necessary. Collaborating closely with GTT, Röchling Automotive defines the required bandwidth and services for each new site. The result is a consistent, reliable connection equipped with all the essential services and developed with the unique needs of that site.

“The success of this approach significantly supported the company’s global expansion efforts and fostered an efficient implementation of Industry 4.0 practices at production sites worldwide,” Mall highlights. “Thanks to GTT’s Tier 1 IP backbone, global presence, and hundreds of Points of Presence (POPs), we now enjoy a dynamic, reliable, and efficient network. This allows us to push forward with the digitalization of our globally dispersed business processes,” Mall continued.

“Thanks to GTT’s Tier 1 IP backbone, global presence, and hundreds of Points of Presence (POPs), we now enjoy a dynamic, reliable, and efficient network. This allows us to push forward with the digitization of our globally dispersed business processes.”

Christian Mall – IT Manager, Network & Data Center Global, Röchling Automotive

The connected future

In the future, the company’s telephony will be transitioned to a SIP‑trunk‑based voice solution integrated into Microsoft Teams — which has already become the central collaboration platform for Röchling Automotive. Additionally, there are plans to further standardize and optimize the security architecture. For this, the company is considering leveraging GTT Secure Connect, a SASE (Secure Access Service Edge) security framework, for corporate networks. SASE, evolving on SD‑WAN, provides location‑, device‑, and usage‑independent security architecture, delivering significant benefits in application performance and enhanced security.

“With GTT as our long‑standing partner and utilizing their IT infrastructure, we are well prepared for future challenges,” concludes Mall. “With the network’s redundancy and high availability, machine downtime in production is largely eliminated. This enables us to work more efficiently and cost‑effectively, and allows us to continue advancing our digitalization and sustainability strategies.”

“With GTT as our long‑standing partner and utilizing their IT infrastructure, we are well prepared for future challenges.”

Christian Mall – IT Manager, Network & Data Center Global, Röchling Automotive

Subscribe to the GTT Insider

Get the latest news, articles and resources about our
products and services