When cement became glamorous, we lost the comfort
Somewhere along the way, we decided that the cement industry needed to become glamorous. And that, perhaps, was our first mistake. Cement was never meant to be glamorous. It was meant to be reliable, predictable and profitable. A cement plant was a simple place once. You had a crusher, raw mill, kiln, cooler, coal mill, cement mill and packing plant. The job was also simple. Keep the plant running. Keep the quality right. Keep the cost under control. Go home. Then came technology. Digitalisation. Automation. AI. Industry 4.0. Big Data. Dashboards. KPIs. OEE. Predictive analytics. The funny part is that the basic equipment is still sitting there looking almost exactly the same. A kiln is still a kiln. A mill is still a mill. A fan still has to move air. A bearing still doesn't care whether the plant has Industry 4.0 certification. And a gearbox still has only one objective: Please don't kill me. Technology can help. But cement remains M-sensitive. Cement manufacturing is still ...