Displaying items by tag: automation

Many people have been adapting to home working over the last few months due to the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting lockdowns. The digital tools have been present for years but current events were all that was needed to force everyone to try it out en masse, moving much of the back office, supporting and managerial functions to the homes of staff. Some of this communal clerical working may never come back in the views of some commentators. Other functions related to networking, such as sales or knowledge transfer, have moved to different channels like webinars and social networking or have resorted to older methods like using the telephone more. The balance between real world and remote networking may change but a return to some level in favour of the former seems likely.

The core processes of cement manufacture are resistant to this trend as workers need to be on site to mine limestone and maintain production lines. Although, that said, Global Cement Magazine has covered examples of remote commissioning and maintenance of equipment at plants in recent issues. Prior to this there has been steady work on remote monitoring of equipment and plants by both suppliers and producers and moves by cement companies to focus on digital operation such as LafargeHolcim’s ‘Plants of Tomorrow’ Industry 4.0 from 2019 or Cemex’s work on autonomous cement plant operations with Petuum.

Some ways in which cement companies have coped with social distancing recently have been revealed as they have published their best practice guides. Last week, for example, Holcim Philippines was promoting its various online customer interaction tools including its existing sales platform and a new online customer engagement program to ‘provide updates on the company’s directions, share knowledge and best practices on Health and Safety and to bond with business partners while quarantines are in place.’ Other companies have done similar things like the Cemex Go platform. On the supplier side there have been various announcements as companies have pushed their digital offerings. Meanwhile, the companies offering automation or remote operation products have been handed a unique stage to promote their wares.

Another example of cement companies trying something new in digital is the pilot that was announced this week by Siam Cement Group with the Bank of Thailand to test out payment systems using a central bank digital currency (CBDC). This likely has very little to do with the cement industry and much more to do with the sheer size of that conglomerate in Thailand. As the second largest company in the country, it’s an obvious target to try out something new like this at scale. The project will run from July 2020 until the end of the year. It will build on work that the central bank has carried out on Project Inthanon, a project between the bank and the eight financial institutions to study and develop a method for domestic wholesale funds transfer using wholesale CBDC. Any benefits using a CBDC eventually bring to Siam Cement Group and other producers in the country are likely to be limited to finance departments but savings are always welcome wherever they arise.

One cautionary note to consider though is that introducing changes to national currency systems can have impacts upon cement companies through general effects to the economy as a whole. The classic example of this in recent years is that of banknote demonetisation in India in late 2016. Cement production growth declined for about half a year at the time due to the disruption it caused.

The downside of this increased reliance on digital products and platforms is increased exposure to cybercrime. There was a rare good-news story in this area recently when Schmersal Group revealed that it had intercepted a network attack in progress in May 2020. It promptly took its IT network offline and disconnected its various systems, from the telephones, to its business software, to its production processes and automated storage systems, at all of its locations. Systems were then gradually cleansed and restored over the next two weeks. Schmersal’s response is commendable but chillingly it ended its press release by saying that, “the attack demonstrated that standard protection from antivirus programs and a firewall is powerless in the event of a targeted attack with previously unknown malware.” Companies had the same vulnerabilities before the pandemic but the increased reliance on digital platforms has heightened the potential risk. As we mentioned last time we covered this topic companies that admit to large scale malware attacks are hard to find most likely because it looks bad. Although since that article was published, Buzzi Unicem admitted that a ransonware attack on its information systems originating from its Ukrainian operations were delaying its financial disclosures in mid-2017.

In the longer term it will be interesting to see how much of the altered working patterns or methods created by the coronavirus lockdowns remain afterwards. The current situation isn’t quite like the ‘disruptive innovation’ business theory pedalled by Clayton M Christensen that has led in-part to established companies setting up start-up incubators to try and spot the next big new thing. Yet, existing trends are being sped up and this may lead to some surprises that were coming down the road anyway. For example, buying someone shares in video networking tool Zoom would have made a nice Christmas present this year! Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

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: Anhui Conch Cement has ordered four new Polab laboratory automation systems from Germany’s ThyssenKrupp Industrial Solutions. The systems will be installed at some of the world’s largest integrated cement plants at Wuhu and Tongling respectively in Anhui province. No value for the order has been disclosed.

Russia: Siberian Cement is spending around Euro4m on upgrading the automated process control system (APCS) at its cement plants. The project, which is about half way along, is scheduled for completion in 2023.

The big announcement from LafargeHolcim this week was the launch of its Industry 4.0 plan known as ‘Plants of Tomorrow.’ The scheme hopes to use automation technologies and robotics, artificial intelligence, predictive maintenance and digital twin technologies across the company’s entire production process. Operational efficiency gains of 15 - 20% are promised.

There wasn’t much detail beyond the use of the Siggenthal integrated cement plant in Switzerland as the ‘lighthouse’ of the scheme, where around 30 proof-of-concept technology ideas will be tested. One technology it did flesh out a little was its long-running Technical Information System (TIS). This follows the work between Holcim and the power and automation product supplier ABB. LafargeHolcim says that over 80% of its plants around the world use the TIS to provide data transparency at plant, country, regional and global level. It added that some country operations have more than a decade of historic technical data available. This last point is pertinent as the data could potentially be used to support the training of any machine learning algorithms the company might want to invest in. The building materials company also mentioned its LH Maqer subsidiary. This startup incubator was launched at the end of 2018.

LafargeHolcim appears to be playing catch up here with Cemex, which has steadily been promoting its own Industry 4.0 developments in recent years. Emphasis on ‘promotion’ here as only yesterday, the day LafargeHolcim made its big reveal, Cemex happened to release information about a recent roundtable in France that it participated in on digitisation and productivity in the construction sector.

Notably in March 2019, the Mexican multinational struck a deal with Petuum to implement its Industrial AI Autopilot software products for autonomous cement plant operations at its plants around the world in March 2019. Readers can find out more about Petuum’s work with Cemex in the June 2019 issue of Global Cement Magazine. In late 2017 Cemex too set up a division, Cemex Ventures, to engage with startups, universities and other organisations. Cemex has also been building its digital customer integration platform Cemex Go since around the same time.

One interpretation of Industry 4.0 is as a German-industrial approach to the so-called fourth or digital revolution pushed by Anglophone software companies. The idea of taking as much data from a production process, such as making cement, is enticing but the prospect of actually doing something useful with this tsunami of information is daunting. Typically algorithm techniques or predictive maintenance seem so far to focus on discrete parts of a process such as a finish grinding mill or final product logistics networks. Companies like Germany’s Inform focus on the latter for example and, incidentally, it celebrated its 50th anniversary this week.

If automated systems start making apparently nonsensical yet useful decisions across the whole raw materials, production and supply chains, then Industry 4.0 will reach its full potential. This moment, if it comes, will be analogous to the time IBM’s computer Deep Blue managed to beat chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov in the late 1990s. What’s more likely are automated systems that can perform consistently outside the human operator comfort zone edging up against hard physical process constraints.

Meanwhile, what will be interesting to watch here is whether LafargeHolcim will be able to leverage any advantage over Cemex by having more cement plants to pull data from. Before LafargeHolcim started selling off its south-east Asian subsidiaries it had more than three times as many cement plants as Cemex. If data really is more valuable than oil these days then starting late in the industrial digital arms race may not be as deleterious as one might first think.

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.

US: Rockwell Automation has launched the FactoryTalk Analytics LogixAI module, an update to its Project Sherlock software product. It is intended to detect production anomalies and alert workers so they can investigate or intervene. The add-on module for the company’s ControlLogix fits directly into a control chassis and streams controller data over the backplane to build predictive models. It can continuously monitor a production operation, detecting anomalies against its derived understanding.

The FactoryTalk Analytics LogixAI module is the newest addition to the FactoryTalk Analytics portfolio from Rockwell Automation. The portfolio includes FactoryTalk Analytics for Devices, which learns about an automation system’s structure to tell workers about problems with individual devices. The LogixAI module expands on this by learning about an automation system’s application and helping identify anomalies with its overall function.

Vietnam: Tan Thang Cement has ordered additional integrated digital automation and electrical equipment from Switzerland’s ABB for a new 2Mt/yr plant it is building in Nghe An province. The order is a follow- up order to the initial automation and electrical systems delivery from ABB for this site, which is currently under construction.

The follow-up order includes a 110kV AIS Substation (Air Insulated Substation), with a SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) system based on ABB Ability System 800xA for Power Control, as well as telecommunications, and High Voltage primary and secondary equipment to support the electrical infrastructure. ABB will also deliver power transformers, distribution transformers, an Intelligent Motor Control Centre, Auxiliary Control Centre, Emergency Diesel Generator, DC power supply, various field devices and related commissioning services.

ABB’s initial delivery included ABB Ability System 800xA DCS (Distributed Control System) to integrate control, electrical and communication systems for optimal visibility into all processes for stable production and efficient use of raw materials and energy. It also included ABB Ability Knowledge Manager and Expert Optimizer software, as well as basic communication and electrical system infrastructure and equipment.

The project is scheduled to be commissioned in late 2019.