It is in isolated locations, long distances and adverse climatic conditions that Grupo BBF (Brasil BioFuels) operates in the agribusiness sector from sustainable oil palm cultivation, biotechnology, biofuel production and renewable energy generation.
With a presence in five states in the north of the country, Grupo BBF, a Brazilian company founded in 2008, has developed a verticalized and integrated business model, promoting the socio-economic development of the region, environmental preservation of the Amazon rainforest and the generation of more than 6,000 direct jobs and 18,000 indirect jobs. The company has 38 thermoelectric plants in its portfolio, 25 of which are in operation and currently serve more than 140,000 customers in the north of the country. In addition, 13 plants are in the implementation phase.
The thermoelectric plants at Grupo BBF serve locations in the country's Isolated Energy Systems - these are remote regions with no connection to the National Interconnected System (SIN). Grupo BBF operates with B100 Biodiesel to replace fossil diesel on a commercial scale in the Isolated Systems. Because it operates in a complex environment, overcomes long distances and orchestrates large internal teams, it is essential to have a secure digital connection for the company's operations, as well as control, efficiency in data management and robustness in its network infrastructure. For these reasons, Grupo BBF has been investing in the digital transformation of its operations using Fortinet technologies, a company that offers comprehensive, integrated and automated cybersecurity solutions.
"Given the complexity of our business, we have to choose robust solutions that allow us to quickly solve the day to day of our operations, especially in issues involving technology and communication. Fortinet offers us greater stability, security in our network infrastructure and improvement in the quality and speed of processes with our employees," says Milton Steagall.
With the assistance of Interatell - Fortinet's local partner - in 2020, Grupo BBF began implementing the FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW) in Moju and Acará, cities in the state of Pará, where the company's largest oil palm cultivation areas are located, as well as two of its palm oil production plants. The aim was to achieve a protected and unified network infrastructure, as well as ensuring that 100% of the information collected at the mills was sent to the regulator. In addition, the secure filtering of data from the Operational Technology (OT) environment generated great stability, reducing the rate of data packet loss due to information not being traced from 27% to just 1.6%.
"It's indisputable that technology is the bridge to improving processes, speeding up productivity and guaranteeing company security. With the challenge proposed by Grupo BBF we can say that technological progress has no barriers and can reach unimaginable places. This was certainly the biggest challenge of the project, the implementation locations," says Marcelo Pafumi, Interatell's Commercial Director.
The company also implemented FortiSwitch to increase network connections by extending FortiGate security policies to the edges of the network. This was made possible by the Fortinet Security Fabric platform, which intelligently connects all solutions. FortiAP access points were also deployed to provide access flexibility for users connected to Wi-Fi networks, while integrating all connectivity under one robust and secure platform.
Grupo BBF decided to use FortiManager as the orchestrator of all the solutions, to consolidate and standardize the management of the network infrastructure in all its units, as well as the FortiAnalyzer solution for managing logs and events with analysis, detection and alerts of attempted cyber attacks. By having complete visibility of the network from a single point, the company has reduced the time spent on processes to identify problems by 90%, bringing together the entire network and security visibility in a single technology dashboard.
Finally, with FortiClient, Grupo BBF gave employees secure access to remote locations in both corporate and industrial environments. With the implementation of the site-to-site VPN, BBF was able to monitor the entire VPN network in real time and remotely, even in the most remote plants of its thermoelectric power generation plants. "Our investment in technology and network infrastructure has allowed us to take another step forward in our aim to become a benchmark company in Industry 4.0 in the sectors where we operate," says Steagall.
"OT and IT environments need to be properly segregated and protected with the appropriate solutions to ensure the continuity of operations as important as BBF's, which deals with critical infrastructure such as energy supply. The use of an integrated connectivity and security technology platform came to ensure not only the operational efficiency that the company has today, but also to enable all the expansions that may occur in the future," explains Roberto Suzuki, Director of Operational Technology at Fortinet for Latin America and the Caribbean.
Grupo BBF 's investment plan in technology and network infrastructure includes the completion of the technological implementation of the new soybean extruder, inaugurated at the end of last year by the company in Paragominas, in the state of Pará; the organization of processes for the application of the technological park in the unprecedented biorefinery under construction in the Manaus Free Trade Zone, which is expected to open in 2025; and the technology infrastructure for the 13 thermoelectric power plants being implemented in the northern region of Brazil.
