Manufacturing Leadership Council Honors Celanese for its Strategy to Enable ‘Digital Plant of the Future’

Digital transformation efforts supported by private 5G network; first deployment completed at world-class acetyls plant in Clear Lake, Texas

Celanese Corporation (NYSE: CE), a global specialty materials and chemical company, today announced it has won the 2023 Manufacturing Leadership Award for its outstanding achievement in the Digital Network Connectivity category. The award, which was announced by both the Manufacturing Leadership Council and the National Association of Manufacturers, recognizes the company’s efforts to deploy a private 5G network at the company’s Clear Lake, Texas facility to enable its global strategic initiative of creating the digital plant of the future.

“Across our manufacturing environment, digital transformation will be a major driver to our success in meeting higher customer expectations, increasing connectivity demands, and improving technology to enable a seamless, integrated and unified user experience,” said Jon Mortimer, Senior Vice President of Manufacturing for Celanese. “Digital manufacturing advancements allow us opportunities to tap into new technologies that give us a competitive edge, produce better products and reduce downtime. However, to digitally transform we need to ‘deliver digital’ at-speed and innovate at-scale while putting people at the center of the equation,” concluded Mortimer.

Using its fully private 5G technology architecture, Celanese and its manufacturing plant employees can reliably communicate with equipment, sensors and other staff over thousands of square feet in a single facility. For Celanese, private 5G provides the flexibility for transmission bands that can be used to penetrate different materials such as sheet metal, steel, glass and concrete, providing service to even the most challenging sites and locations.

This digital transformation project, which began in early 2022, has allowed Celanese to replicate each actual physical asset of a manufacturing site as a digital asset supported by a unified integrated digital thread that can be visualized—enabling improved decision-making on the right data, at the right time, at the right place—so Celanese can improve reliability and operational excellence and continue to manufacture quality products safely.

Private 5G networks have the potential to transform industries and redefine the future of work. For this reason, Celanese views 5G as a foundational enabler to the predictable, self-optimizing manufacturing plant of the future.

Self-directed vehicles, ubiquitous IoT (Internet of Things) and augmented reality are just a few examples of what private 5G will enable for Celanese. The company is targeting a full range of use cases to transform how the company is operating its manufacturing sites today. As Celanese embarks on its bold digital transformation journey, connectivity is a key foundational pillar that will allow machines to leverage ultra-low latency connectivity to transmit and receive data in real-time and influence the decision-making process.

“This is an inspiring time for Celanese as we go full-speed ahead in executing our digital transformation strategy,” noted Mortimer. “Our efforts will be focused first on our people with decisions that pave the way for a data-centric journey that will complement the best of human decision-making capabilities with the power of data and analytics.”

About Celanese

Celanese Corporation is a global chemical leader in the production of differentiated chemistry solutions and specialty materials used in most major industries and consumer applications. Our businesses use the full breadth of Celanese's global chemistry, technology and commercial expertise to create value for our customers, employees, shareholders and the corporation. As we partner with our customers to solve their most critical business needs, we strive to make a positive impact on our communities and the world through The Celanese Foundation. Based in Dallas, Celanese employs approximately 13,000 employees worldwide and had 2022 net sales of $9.7 billion. For more information about Celanese Corporation and its product offerings, visit www.celanese.com.

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