Displaying items by tag: efficiency

Japan: Sumitomo Osaka Cement has started using Michibiki, a Japanese satellite positioning system, as part of a demonstration project by its limestone mining operations to improve efficiency. At present the company uses so-called ‘internet of things’ technology such as yard inventory management by drone and rough stone quality management by heavy equipment, including loaders and dump trucks, equipped with Global Positioning System (GPS) tablet terminals. The group operates eight limestone mines in Japan and it mines 20Mt/yr.

Saudi Arabia: Denmark-based FLSmidth has announced that it has secured an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract with Yanbu Cement for a ‘massive’ efficiency-increasing upgrade to reduce the heat and power consumption of the 5.9Mt/yr integrated Yanbu cement plant in Al Madinah Province.

FLSmidth previously supplied the Yanbu cement plant with an automation upgrade and burner system retrofit in 2018. It concluded a service agreement with Yanbu Cement in 2019.

Germany: Currax and Siemens have announced their collaboration on a mill operations digitisation pilot project involving the Simotics Connect 400 motor data collector and transmitter. They hope that analysis of data processed via the Simotics 400 will better enable the remote operating of mills ‘to increase efficiency and component life’ and speeding the shift towards automation and production that is resilient to crises such as the coronavirus outbreak.

China: Hebei province-based Tangshan Jidong Cement’s net 2019 profit was US$298m, up by 42% year-on-year from US$210m in 2018. Cement and clinker sales remained flat. Tangshan Jidong Cement attributed the growth to increased prices due to a 9.9% year-on-year increase in infrastructure spending to US$1.86tn. Throughout the year, the company said, it completed energy-saving optimisation and upgrades to improve efficiency, implemented strategic marketing and reduced the cost of material procurement.

Russia: Italy-based Buzzi UniCem subsidiary SLK Cement has concluded an environmental agreement with the Sverdlovsk Oblast Ministry of Energy and Housing and Communal Services for the co-processing of solid municipal waste at its 1.0Mt/yr Sukholozhskcement plant. AMF Online News has reported that the transition, part of a nationwide government initiative called simply ‘Ecology,’ entails a modernisation of the kiln line, which the company says will be commissioned in 2023 or 2024. SLK Cement general director Andrei Immoreev said that alternative fuels use will not only increase production efficiency, but will also contribute to solving the environmental problems of the region.”

Germany: Siemens subsidiary Flender, which supplies couplings and gearboxes to the cement industry, has signed a partnership agreement for technological solutions with digital drive specialist Currax. The partnership aims to bring a comprehensive increase in efficiency to Flender’s business and a high level of flexibility for customers. Currax executive director Daniel Aßman said, “From customer acquisition to sales, from implementation to support, Currax is the contact for all matters relating to the Flender portfolio.”

Russia: Eurocement subsidiary Akhangarantsement produced 1.9Mt of cement in 2019, a rise of 16% year-on-year from 1.6Mt in 2018. The company attributed the growth to a programme of ‘modernisation of the equipment at the Akhangarantsement aimed at increasing productivity, energy efficiency and reliability of production,’ without any disruption to supply. Akhangarantsement general director Gennady Kulikov said, “The coordinated work of the entire team allowed us to fulfil the tasks assigned to the plant with honour.”

Greece: Titan Cement has opened the Group Digital Centre of Competence, a facility which it says will consolidate its digital and advanced analytics capabilities. Titan says the Centre ‘accelerates its digital efforts’ set out under its Group Digital Initiative. “This is an essential part of efforts to increase operational efficiency and competitiveness,” said the company.

Switzerland: LafargeHolcim has launched a four-year industrial automation plan called ‘Plants of Tomorrow.’ It includes Industry 4.0 concepts such as automation technologies and robotics, artificial intelligence, predictive maintenance and digital twin technologies for its entire production process. The plan is expected to show 15 – 20% operational efficiency gains. It also claims that the initiative is, “one of the largest roll-outs of Industry 4.0 technologies in the building materials industry.”

“Transforming the way we produce cement is one of the focus areas of our digitalisation strategy and the ‘Plants of Tomorrow’ initiative will turn Industry 4.0 into reality at our plants. These innovative solutions make cement production safer, more efficient and environmentally fit,” said Solomon Baumgartner Aviles, Global Head Cement Manufacturing.

The building materials company is presently working on more than 30 pilot projects covering all regions where the company is active. The company’s integrated cement plant at Siggenthal in Switzerland will be a trial site where the integration of all relevant modules will be tested.

One examples of where LafargeHolcim has started the plan include a partnership with Swiss start-up Flyability to use drones to increase the frequency of inspections at plants while simultaneously reducing cost and increasing safety for employees by inspecting confined spaces. The concept is being rolled out to several markets, including Switzerland, France, Germany, the UK, the US, Canada, India and Russia. It is also using a subsidiary, Maqer, to identify technology startups with promising technology. It aims to harness the potential of this through new partnership models with both manufacturing and software companies.

LafargeHolcim has already launched technology to track performance centrally and allocated resources to support the plant network in real time. More than 80% of LafargeHolcim’s cement plants are already connected to its Technical Information System that provides data transparency at plant, country, regional and global level. Some country operations have more than a decade of historic technical data available. Other systems allow the remote control of certain parts of the operations through online condition monitoring systems. Since its implementation in 2006, this system has saved over Euro70m and an additional 3Mt of cement sold through fewer breakdowns.