Displaying items by tag: software

France: Lafarge France has launched its Lafarge 360 initiative. The scheme aims to aid specifiers, contractors and builders make low-carbon structures through reducing CO₂ emissions, preserving natural resources and responsible innovation. It will start the initiative by proving a Lafarge 360 score on its associated digital platform to allow customers to assess the environmental impact of Lafarge’s products. By providing a rating of A to D the tool will offer information on the concrete types.

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.

Germany: INFORM has marked its 50th anniversary at an event held at its headquarters in Aachen. Over 250 guests attended the function, including founder Professor Hans-Jürgen Zimmermann and current chief executive officer (CEO) Adrian Weiler.

The software company makes products using operations research and artificial intelligence, including fuzzy logic and machine learning, for a variety of industries from logistics, supply chains, manufacturing, workforce, aviation, automotive and fraud prevention. Over 1000 companies in more than 40 countries run INFORM software systems. They are supported from Aachen in Germany and Inform Software in Atlanta in the US.

Austria: Mondi has launched ‘myMondi’ a web-based platform. It says it is the first all-in-one digital customer platform available in the paper sack industry worldwide. The sales product is intended to enable customers to view live product and stock information, place orders and track order status.

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.

Mexico: Cemex Ventures has invested in Linkx, a company that offers software to optimise goods delivery. The company’s software solution allows control of deliveries and vehicles in real time, allowing for data-based decision-making and facilitating communication and information among all involved parties: shipper, carrier, and receiver.

“This investment is a clear example of our offer. Linkx came to us at a very early stage, and together, we worked on continuous improvements by reinforcing their minimum viable product and offering continuous feedback on our knowledge of industry and technology. After numerous optimisations, we have piloted this solution with several Cemex clients to achieve a very robust solution for the supply chain management challenge," said Gonzalo Galindo, chief executive officer (CEO) of Cemex Ventures.

Cemex Ventures is the corporate venture capital wing of Cemex that was launched in 2017. It invests in startups with potential in the construction industry and works with entrepreneurs, universities and other stakeholders.

Germany: Siemens is presenting new products from its Digital Enterprise portfolio for process industries at the Hannover Messe trade fair. These include new versions of its Comos computer-aided engineering (CAE), XHQ Operations Intelligence and its PCS 7 Plant Automation Accelerator software products. The latest version of Comos includes a portal to help users choose components from a range of manufacturers. The new version of XHQ Operations Intelligence includes better access to remote data and simplified integration of engineering data. The update to PCS 7 Plant Automation Accelerator includes increased system openness based on GSDML and NE150 standards.

Mexico/US: Cemex has entered into a global agreement with Petuum to implement its Industrial AI Autopilot software products for autonomous cement plant operations at its plants around the world. The products for cement plant operations are being deployed at select Cemex USA and Mexico plants and will continue to be rolled out in 2019.

"We expect our yield improvements and energy savings to be up to 7%, from the connected AI-based autopilots, which is game-changing for our industry,” said Rodrigo Quintero, Operations Digital Technologies Manager at Cemex.

Petuum says that its Industrial AI Autopilot suite of products can deliver real-time forecasts for key process variables, prescriptions for critical control variables and supervised autosteer aligned with business objectives for all cement plant operations including clinker cooler, preheater, rotary kiln, pyro-process, ball mill and vertical mill processes to achieve lowered energy consumption, optimised fuel mix and increased throughput while maintaining stable operation and product quality. The products are integrated with plant control systems and OSIsoft PI data infrastructure for scalable and standardised deployments across multiple lines and plants globally.

The joint Cemex and Petuum teams achieved a cruise-control-like supervised ‘autosteer mode,’ where the AI Autopilot could run operations with full engage-disengage control available to the operator.

To find out more about Pettum visit: https://petuum.com/

Ghana: Ghacem has linked its Kumasi terminal to the Data One server, a logistics product, to centralise sales and ordering processing. It follows requests by distributors following a survey, according to the Ghanaian Times newspaper. Sales and orders at the terminal will now use a similar system to that at the company’s plants at Tema and Takoradi. Plans are now being prepared to link the company’s other terminals – at Tamale, Buipe, Techiman and Dwenase – to the system.

Oman: Raysut Cement has launched the use of SAP S4/HANA and SAP Success Factors as part of a change to its human resource (HR) digital business processes. SAP S4/HANA is a resource-planning package and SAP Success Factors is used to manage HR functions. The project has been supported by Fujitsui International. The implementation phase is intended to run until mid-2019.