-Collaboration helps enterprises exploit the power of Industry 4.0 -Manufacturer e.l.m. leblanc boosts its customer satisfaction with joint solution

PARIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Orange Business Services and Microsoft are collaborating to deliver large-scale, end-to-end Internet of Things (IoT) solutions that boost the digital processes of companies in the manufacturing sector. Enterprises can use the Orange modular IoT solution, Datavenue, strengthened by Microsoft Azure IoT Suite, to transition to Industry 4.0 and optimize the entire manufacturing value chain.

Through this collaboration, companies can take advantage of the combined expertise of Orange and Microsoft regarding data protection, as well as device and data management. This includes the opportunity to leverage Orange Business Services many IoT connectivity options, in particular LoRa. Use cases range from supply chain and smart inventory management to digital operations, such as predictive maintenance, employee safety and facility and equipment management.

Joint solution helps e.l.m. leblanc anticipate and better handle maintenance activities

For its long-term customer e.l.m. leblanc, Orange delivered a customized IoT platform on Microsoft Azure, which provides a tailored solution for remote monitoring, along with curative and predictive maintenance. Subsidiary of the Bosch Group, e.l.m. leblanc manufactures gas boilers and water-heaters since 1932. The company is a major player in the French housing and industrial markets for heating & cooling systems and hot water for sanitary use.

"Innovation is part of e.l.m. leblancs DNA, continuously providing our customers with new services and more comfort. We have a vision of a connected world where every heating system optimizes its energy performance to protect the environment. This ambition is illustrated in the Optibox solution for our connected boilers. e.l.m. leblanc has fully relied on Orange Business Services expertise to develop this solution. Using the Azure Cloud allows for high-level scalability and efficient machine learning solutions with reasonable costs," said Philippe Laforge, chief executive of e.l.m. leblanc.

The remote monitoring solution collects the boilers data and alerts technicians of any malfunction. This allows for more efficient maintenance intervention, with fine-tuned predictions on the probable causes of failure based on real-time data analytics. Preemptive alerts can also be raised by the platform through predictive maintenance algorithms. Benefits include optimization of intervention processes, and increased end-customer satisfaction, thanks to innovative and responsive customer support.

Orange will demonstrate e.l.m. leblancs innovative predictive maintenance platform at the Microsoft Experience in Paris on 3-4 October 2017 and IoT Solutions World Congress 2017 in Barcelona from 3-5 October 2017.

Combined expertise delivers reliable, secure end-to-end IoT projects

With Datavenue, Orange Business Services offers a comprehensive set of solutions and services to securely manage IoT projects and their integration with information systems, providing:

certified connected devices best suited to the projects use cases,
connectivity solutions (cellular 3G and 4G, LoRa, LTE M…),
a device and data management platform,
extensive expertise to manage the project from conception to implementation: consulting, development, data protection, integration, data analysis, maintenance, etc.
Datavenue boasts over 700 experts working on data and IoT projects, 14 million connected devices managed by Orange, and the capacity to handle over 160 million items of technical data per minute.

With its Azure IoT Suite, Microsoft offers a powerful and consistent software environment to facilitate setting up and scaling large device and data management projects. In order to accelerate the roll out of industrial projects, Azure IoT Suite provides pre-packaged solutions and allows companies to swiftly get familiar with the set-up and explore the most common IoT project scenarios (e.g. remote monitoring, predictive maintenance, connected factory).

The software environment provided by Microsoft will allow for the use of advanced solutions such as Cortana Intelligence Suite (advanced analytics and AI), Power BI (data visualization) and Mobile Apps (Xamarin) to ensure a flawless mobile user experience.

"This partnership between Orange and Microsoft is an important step in our growth strategy targeting the IoT and data analytics B2B market. By adding Azure IoT solutions to our Datavenue portfolio, we provide our customers with powerful software with the assurance that it will seamlessly integrate with Microsofts business applications, an industry standard. This partnership is a remarkable opportunity for us not just to expand our business, but also to contribute more actively to the development of the IoT market around the world," said Beatrice Felder, executive vice president, Customer Experience, IoT and Analytics, Orange Business Services.

"Orange Business Services and Microsoft have been partners for several years. We are excited to engage in this new collaboration tackling the growing market of the Internet of Things. With a partner such as Orange Business Services, we can offer a full end-to-end solution, relying on Orange expertise in IoT connectivity and particularly LoRa, and its proven know-how in integrating IT projects surrounding connected sensors and devices," said Maziar Zolghadr, Microsoft EMEA Director of Strategic Partnerships.

About Orange Business Services

Orange Business Services, the B2B branch of the Orange Group, and its 21,000 employees, is focused on supporting the digital transformation of multinational enterprises and French SMEs across five continents. Orange Business Services is not only an infrastructure operator, but also a technology integrator and a value-added service provider. It offers companies digital solutions that help foster collaboration within their teams (collaborative workspaces and mobile workspaces), better serve their customers (enriched customer relations and business innovation), and support their projects (enriched connectivity, flexible IT and cyberdefense). The integrated technologies that Orange Business Services offer range from Software Defined Networks (SDN/NFV), Big Data and IoT, to cloud computing, unified communications and collaboration, as well as cybersecurity. Orange Business Services customers include over 3,000 renowned multinational corporations at an international level and over two million professionals, companies and local communities in France.

Learn more at www.orange-business.com or follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and our blogs.

Orange is one of the worlds leading telecommunications operators with annual sales of 40.9 billion euros in 2016 and 269 million customers worldwide at 30 June 2017. Orange is listed on Euronext Paris (symbol ORA) and on the New York Stock Exchange (symbol ORAN).

Orange and any other Orange product or service names included in this material are trademarks of Orange or Orange Brand Services Limited.