Change in China

In 2019, China’s cement production amounted to over 2.33 billion t – that is about 1.6 t per capita. Many enterprises in the cement industry, including China Resources Cement Holdings Limited (CR Cement), are exploring the road to digital transformation. The benefits of digitalisation for the industry are manifold, ranging from increased efficiency and improved operational excellence to predictive condition monitoring using AI models.

Founded in 2003, CR Cement is a supplier of cement and ready-mixed concrete in southern China, employing approximately 20 000 people. CR Cement attaches great importance to social entrepreneurship and is involved in areas that benefit society and the environment, such as recycling management, energy saving and emissions reduction. By setting clear goals, the Group promotes the continuous optimisation of raw material and energy use and the improvement of health and work safety standards in each of its operations. Large-scale projects for technological modernisation and digital transformation are designed to raise operating standards in all plants in the long term. The plant in Tianyang in the Guangxi Autonomous Region in the south of China is considered a product of one of two pioneering projects, and is one of the most technically sophisticated plants of CR Cement. It produces both clinker and cement products and uses solid municipal waste as substitute fuel. It is also one of the Group’s five co-processing plants. In the search for a leading solution provider for Industry 4.0 applications, CR Cement relied on Siemens in the field of digitalisation. Siemens was not only able to offer CR Cement the software and hardware required for digital transformation projects, but also a digital twin of the plant, and provided the overall life cycle equipment management and enterprise-level system integration solutions by connecting them with digital consulting and implementation services.

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Read the article online at: https://www.worldcement.com/special-reports/21012022/change-in-china/