Chennai: Finnish telecom products maker Nokia has begun manufacturing 5G- ready multiband base station in India from its facility at Oragadam near Chennai. The company said it will start shipping the product to global customers by next week. While production has begun at its plant in Finland, the Orgadam plant will take a major portion of the mass production. The Nokia AirScale multiband station supports advanced network features, allowing service providers to increase performance in their networks and prepare for the evolution of 5G and IoT (Internet of Things). The product has been built in a way that it supports existing networks like 2G, 3G and 4G and when 5G comes, the service provider is only required to update their software.
Set up in 2008, the facility is Nokia’s biggest production unit, serving both domestic and global markets. “India plays such a key role for Nokia with this plant, our global development centres and R&D centres. Our employees are in the heart of technology development and this helps to drive the market,” said Monika Maurer, Nokia’s COO. Maurer, who was one of the founders of Nokia’s research and development center in Chennai, said the company’s focus now is not only to further leverage the ecosystem in the chain, but to also transform the supply chain. “We are leading supply chain 4.0 and are rolling out several initiatives towards this transformation.”
At 3.8 million units, the Orgadam facility has nearly doubled its production from 2 million units 2 years ago. With 1500 employees, Maurer said that the company would not just invest in human resources, but in capabilities and technologies. With an ecosystem of partners and suppliers in the state, Maurer said the Oragadam facility has built itself into a flagship unit.
[“Source-timesofindia”]
