Nucor Corporation Expands North American
Headquarters with TE's TrueNet Products
Situation
Nucor Corporation, the nation’s largest recycler and manufacturer of steel products, expanded its North American
Headquarters by retrofitting an existing 5-story building. With an aggressive short-term construction schedule, Nucor
worked with TE Connectivity Value Added Reseller (VAR), Network Cabling Systems for all installation activities utilizing
TE's TrueNet copper and fiber products.
Solution
A complete turn-key installation of TE’s TrueNet copper and fiber products was installed to each Intermediate Distribution
Facility (IDF) floor in Nucor’s expanded North American headquarters. Also, TE’S indoor/outdoor rated fiber products were
installed in a remote building and 10-gigabit CopperTen cabling and patch panels were added within Nucor’s data center to
support active network equipment and servers.
Results
No one understands quality and workmanship of products better than Nucor Steel. As a leading manufacturer of carbon
and alloy steel products, Nucor wanted a quality and robust technology to serve its current and future voice and data
requirements. “We sought a vendor that we could work with to do a good and professional installation job,” explained Dave
Dunlap, IT Project lead. “We selected Network Cabling Systems (NCS) for this project because we already had a positive
experience with them from a past project – including our MAC’s (moves, add, changes) work. We knew their workmanship
was quality and their commitment to Nucor’s standards was on-target with our expectations. By NCS introducing us to TE,
we knew we would be getting quality products and a solid installation."
Situation
As a Fortune 500 company, Nucor operates in nineteen
states with its’ corporate headquarters located in Charlotte,
NC. Products produced are carbon and alloy steel for
commercial and residential use.
Nucor’s success can be attributed to the hard work and
dedication of its employees. Dating back to 1905, Nucor has
always been an innovator, producing the first commercial
cars with electric lights and electric starters. Known then as
an auto manufacturer, Ransom E. Olds, founded Oldsmobile
and then in 1905, REO Motor Car Company. Through a
series of acquisitions, the company evolved into the nuclear
instruments and electronics business and later purchased
a company that made steel joists and joist girders. The
company‘s remarkable evolution led to major innovations
in steel manufacturing. Not long thereafter, in 1972, the
company officially adopted the Nucor Corporation name.
Nucor has expanded its’ operations over the years and
in the summer of 2006, retrofitted a 5-story building for
expansion of its North American headquarters in Charlotte,
NC. It was an aggressive 6-month construction effort to
completely renovate the existing building. During this time,
Nucor’s IT department led a project to select a vendor that
could deliver professional results with the installation of the
building’s horizontal and riser cabling infrastructure. Through
a very detailed evaluation, including presentations from
Network Cabling Systems, all parties agreed that TE was
the solution that would best fill the requirements Nucor had
determined were essential.
Solution
TE Connectivity's TrueNet Category 6 AirES cable and
modular Category 6 jacks were installed to each floors’
workstation outlets. Two Category 6 plenum cables were
installed to each work location with each floors’ IDF
rooms being equipped with TE’s TrueNet patch panels.
For connectivity between each floor’s IDF, TE provided a
“bundled” Category 6 solution. The two 6-cable bundled
solution contained speed-wrap and aramid yarn for
additional strength and durability and was terminated in
each closet on TE’s TrueNet patch panels. In each IDF,
two equipment racks were each equipped with TE vertical
managers, three 8-inch managers for each rack. Each 8-inch
vertical manager was equipped with removable metal doors.
This provided not only the right aesthetics but also ensured
proper cable management within each IDF.
For vertical riser connectivity between the floors’ IDFs, a 50
micron multi-mode laser optimized 12-fiber TE cable was
installed. The cable with inter-locking armored sheathing
was terminated on TE’s TrueNet 2RU RMG series rack mount
enclosures in each of the floors’ IDFs. “We used TE’s RMG’s
fiber panels not only in the IDFs but also in our Data Center
and two other additional locations,” explained Dave Dunlap,
Nucor IT project lead, “as it is a low-profile design that is
modular and flexible for our needs. We chose to direct
terminate in each panel using SC couplers.”
In addition to providing horizontal and vertical cabling in
the new retrofitted building, Nucor also expanded their
network to a remote Generator building as well as a carrier/
equipment room using TE fiber cable. Two 12-fiber multimode (MM) indoor/outdoor plenum-rated fibers were
installed in conduit between the Nucor data center and the
generator building and another two 12-stranded MM fiber
cable was installed in the carrier/equipment room. “We
needed to provide connectivity to the generator room for
some time now and additional fiber was needed to expand
carrier services into our data center equipment distribution
area,” explained Dunlap. In both the carrier room and
generator building, a 2RU TE RMG fiber panel was installed
originating from the data center on a 4RU RMG fiber panel.
The fiber panels contain sliding and removable front and rear
panels which provide convenient access inside the panel. Up
to 72 terminations can be made in 1RU enclosure.
Inside the data center, TE’s TrueNet 10-gigabit cabling and
24-port CopperTen 1RU patch panels were installed to server
cabinets. Each server cabinet, approximately 15 cabinets
total, were equipped with TE’s CopperTen 24-port patch
panels. From each server cabinet, TE CopperTen cables were
extended to a centralized cabinet. The centralized cabinet,
also equipped with TE’s CopperTen panels, allows a single
TE's Copper and Fiber cabling running from the Main Distribution
Facility to the Intermediate Distribution Facilities.
Page 2
point for moves, add, changes without ever making any
patch changes in the individual server cabinets. “We wanted
an inter-connection between our switches and servers that
would provide us a single access point for any network
changes required. Now, if we need to make a network
change to any of our servers, we only do it in the centralized
cabinet,” said Dunlap. TE’s TrueNet high-performance patch
cords were used in the cabinets as well as the industries only
laser-tuned modular jacks in the patch panels. This ensures
that each jack manufactured is individually optimized for
10-gigabit performance.
The project also included voice and data expansion to
another floor of the newly renovated building. Nucor’s
affiliate, Castrip, currently occupies a portion of another
floor. Both fiber and Category 6 “bundled” cables were
extended to this floors IDF originating from the data center.
There were six total bundled cables each with six Category 6
cables. All cables were terminated on TrueNet patch panels.
The fiber was a 12-strand MM 50 micron cable with an
armored cable design using an all dielectric central strength
member (CSM).
A front view of one of the IDF’s with TE TrueNet patch panels
and 8" vertical managers with removable doors
Page 3
Results
Nucor Corporation emphasizes one goal, “Take Care of
our Customers.” They are committed to being the best in
the industry by providing the highest quality products and
having the most productive work-force possible. The key
to being such a profitable company today is attributed to
working together as a team committed to this one goal.
The North American headquarters expansion, allowed TE
and our partner, Network Cabling Systems, to be a part of
its exciting growth and to work with many talented Nucor
professionals. The challenges were many and at times, not
everything during the installation went as planned, however,
the end result was a very clean installation and a reliable
network infrastructure that will provide many years of highquality and consistent network performance. “We knew
we could count on NCS to provide a quality installation,”
concluded Scott Messenger, “and we are very happy with all
TE products that are in our network today.”
A rear view of the IDF rack with TE's CopperTen
cabling terminated and TE cable management
Case Study
Contact us:
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USA 27409-8420
Tel: 1-800-553-0938
Fax: 1-717-986-7406
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104886AE 10/12 Revision © 2012, 2007