Digital solutions for the cement industry

Tap the full potential of your cement plants

Digital solutions

For many branches of industry, the Internet of Things (IoT) is seen as a spearhead for a revolution in manufacturing. IoT is an essential part of an initiative called Industrie 4.0 – an initiative of the German automation industry. Its objective is to define the way forward for manufacturing companies in the Internet age. A core element is that process industries become more intelligent. Cement companies, too, can profit from digitalization which helps tackle the challenges facing the industry e.g. demand for increased productivity, efficiency, optimization and lifecycle time. Our digitalization solutions not only facilitate raw material and energy savings of up to 20 %, they simultaneously ensure highest quality. Digitalization is a journey Innomotics takes together with the cement customers.

Inside an Innomotics factory in Mohelnice

Integrated plant engineering – connecting data

Integrated plant engineering provides different disciplinary of plant engineers with a continuous flow of data that meet their specific needs across the complete design phase. This connected data gives the chance of taking a 3D tour inside the plant via the plant’s digital twin created in the course of engineering process before the real plant comes into existence, and provides training beforehand.
With the help of the connected data, the automation project can be generated eliminating need of high effort of manual engineering works. These highly integrated data can be used as data source for the future plant maintenance management.

Automation – the rock-solid basis

In the cement industry, the groundwork for the journey toward digitalization starts with automation. Therefore automation can be seen as the brain, which collects all the data with a closely knit network of sensors and instruments as the eyes and ears, and integrated drive systems as the muscles. Digitalization is possible only with a solid automation solution.
CEMAT* based on SIMATIC* PCS7, Siemens’* well-proven process control system perfectly fits to this requirement.

Optimization of production potential

The innovative process control system CEMAT on the basis of SIMATIC PCS 7 technology is the best solution for optimization of production potential in cement production. All the necessary function components are already in the system and standardized, even for special process optimization tasks. This includes optimization of the fuel supply for the oven – with fossil fuels or alternative fuels – as well as optimization of mills.
CEMAT allows a forward-looking process control that automatically gives a higher throughput while maintaining product quality. The use of energy and raw materials can be reduced substantially; quality requirements can be set at a high level and production organized in a more flexible way.

Decades long experience in the cement industry

Our products and solutions for the cement industry incorporate more than 35 years of experience and collaboration with the world’s leading cement companies. They are based on proven standards and tailored to the specific demands of your industry.

Advanced Process Control – stored knowledge for your control tasks

SIMATIC PCS 7/CEMAT includes a standard library containing a wide range of different types of Advanced Process Control (APC) control functions, making it possible to address the majority of complex closed-loop control tasks in the cement industry. This provides the user with easy access to an advanced functionality at no extra cost. Customer´s expertise can be easily integrated, planning and implementation are minimized and furthermore, the system is modular and open to future extensions and implementation of artificial intelligent solutions.

Kiln Control System

The cement manufacturing process is a highly energy-intensive process, with many unpredictable disturbances. To manage process, the operators are spending a lot of time, efforts and have to permanently monitor the process very carefully. The goal of the Kiln Control System (KCS) is to increase the quality as well as efficiency of clinker production.

Customer benefits

Reduced workload for control personnel
Improvement of product quality
More efficient use/reduction of the energy consumption
Improved lifespan of machinery due to gentler modes of plant operation
Improved lifespan of refractory material used for the kiln lining
Better compliance with exhaust gas regulations and other environmental requirements
Reduction in the number of unscheduled plant downtimes
Enhanced reliability: the optimization system ensures that the plant operates more reliably at all times

Mill Control System

The milling process in cement plants is extremely energy-intensive. there are potential energy savings available through the use of Mill Control System (MCS). The MCS is a software system that draws conclusions about the quality levels of the production plant through a knowledge-based approach using current plant data (defined measured values). The process optimization system MCS delivers continuous values for this quality parameter that can otherwise only be determined by a laboratory system at specific intervals.

Customer benefits

Complete integration in the PCS7 with no additional hardware
Reduction in workload for the control room operators
Homogenizing the milling process increases grinding speed and output volume of the mills
Improves quality of the products
Energy consumption per ton of cement is reduced
Smoother operation increases the lifespan of machinery

Minerals Process Analyzer – for better, data-based decision making

Minerals Process Analyzer (MPA) is a long-term achieving system which can be integrated to SIMATIC PCS 7 CEMAT or other process control systems, providing data for further analysis and evaluations. MPA helps cement manufacturers benefit from its many features for example: increased productivity by data comparison, cost saving and quality improvement through the analysis of the alarms and the integrated report system.

Process simulation – testing and optimizing ahead of time

The cement process simulator is an option to be integrated into SIMATIC PCS 7 CEMAT, enabling a realistic reconstruction of the behavior of a cement plant. The digital twin offers virtual commissioning, operator training and seeing the plant behavior by changing the process parameters before launching into real production. For the cement customers that spells safety, lower costs and higher efficiency.

Operations Intelligence – better information, better results

Operations intelligence is tailored-made solution, which base on your installations of automation and IT infrastructure. This solution will collect, analyze and present operational and business data for plant dash boarding, thereby enabling real-time performance management and decision support at higher management level.

This data transparency can help cement companies optimize their entire supply chain not only for cement production but also complete material value chain and speeds up the decision making process up via smart and connectible field devices, cloud solutions and real-time plant data. Through the comparison of assets between the plants, it enhances the visual quality of the cost factors. Needless to say, state-of-the-art solutions fulfil the industrial IT security requirements.

References - Digitalization solutions in practice

The cement industry is investing in the digitalization of processes. Find out which projects have already been implemented.

Indocement Tunggal Prakarsa, Indonesia

Efficient production for 30 million tonnes of cement per year - modernisation and automation for maximum reliability

Efficient automation: modernisation of the plants to the CEMAT system for greater reliability and efficiency
Successful increase in production: Reliable achievement of the production target of 30 million tonnes of clinker per year
Minimised downtime: Safe migration with maximum plant availability during modernisation

Nocibe, Benin, Africa

State-of-the-art technology for the country's largest cement plant - Efficient automation and reliable system integration

Comprehensive scope of delivery: Around 80 automation cabinets and eight SIMATIC S7-400 control units with redundant system bus
Advanced data processing: Data archiving and reporting with SICEMENT MIS (now Innomotics MIS)
Optimised process control: Kiln Control System (KCS) and CEMAT Software Engineering for the entire plant

Asia Cement, South Korea

Intelligent replacement for state-of-the-art automation - step-by-step modernisation for maximum efficiency

Long-term partnership: step-by-step installation and modernisation of the automation system at the Jecheon plant since the 1990s
Updated system: Migration of the process automation system to CEMAT V8.1 by 2018 for state-of-the-art process control
Comprehensive scope of delivery: MIS engineering, project management, testing and commissioning - also directly on site

*SIEMENS, SIMOTICS, SINAMICS, SIMOGEAR, SIMATIC, STARTER, CEMAT, COMOS, SIRAS, SICEMENT, SIPLUS, SIDRIVE IQ, SIHARBOR, SIMOTION, TIA Portal, TIA Selection Tool and Drive Technology Configurator are registered trademarks of Siemens AG or its affiliated companies whose use by third parties for their own purposes could violate the rights of the respective owner.