1.1 Introduction
For all practical purposes, the production of Portland cements has evolved into a mature industry, although the rudimentary process of manufacture for the basic product was patented only about two centuries back in 1824 in the United Kingdom. Since then, the process has undergone sustained development, the demand for the diversified group of products has continuously risen, and the industry has flourished. More specifically, the growth of the industry has been unprecedented in the last two decades all over the world. The production of Portland cements crossed 2.0 billion tons per year in 2003, 3.0 billion tons in 2009, and 4.0 billion tons in 2013. With high growth rate in the previous decade, the industry was expected to cross the mark of 5.0 billion tons of production per year in 2019, but it did not happen due to the impacts of a global economic recession. According to some forecasts, the industry is back on its growth path and will reach 5.8 billion tons by the year 2027 [1].
Fundamentally, the production of Portland cements is dependent on natural raw materials and involves several unit operations of varying efficacy and environmental impacts. These unit operations cause both physical and chemical transformation of the in-process materials and are interfaced with each other in an integrated plant. The quality parameters of the finished products are maintained within a narrow range of composition and microstructural features for effective applications. Notwithstanding these rigours, the industry has grown phenomenally as mentioned above. Up until the 1980s, the growth was driven by scale and cost of production. After the 1980s, energy conservation and pollution control became the prime drivers. From the beginning of this century, it was realized that sustainability would have to be of paramount importance in increasing further capacity of cement production. Another unavoidable environmental requirement that has emerged in further expanding the cement capacity is the compelling move to a less-polluting regime in terms of CO2 and other gaseous emissions. Because of the above change drivers, the cement industry has always attempted to reshape itself with energy efficiency, resource conservation, and sustainability. The same trend of industrial restructuring is more prominent now, further enhanced by the adoption of various digital solutions.
Tracing back the technological history of the cement industry, one may observe that during 1970s and 1980s automation was used as a means to maintain the plant operations in safe and continuous mode. During 1990s, the process control and information system of the then vintage were integrated with the plant operation, leading to higher productivity, better efficiency, lower manufacturing cost, and improved product quality. During the above period, emphasis was on the computer integrated manufacturing system (CIMS) with different levels of computing functionality. In late 1990s and in early years of the 21st century, the cement industry became more and more market-driven from its earlier orientation of being production-driven, which prompted a change in the CIMS model. The execution of manufacture was no more limited to only the plant control system but necessitated the integration of the enterprise resource planning (ERP). Such integration was possible because the plant process control could be brought to a more precise state due to various developments including the use of more sensitive and accurate sensors.
The extent of process evolution that has thus taken place in the plants producing various types of Portland cements is significantly large and consistent with the scale of production, which has surpassed that of other commercially produced construction materials such as steel, aluminium, or plastic. This chapter is aimed at reviewing the technological status of contemporary cement plants with a view to understanding the transformational progress it has made towards achieving the industry 4.0 standards.
1.2 Scale and Scatter of Production
The recent trends of demand and per capita consumption of Portland cement have been compared on a global basis with those of steel, aluminium, and plastic in Table 1.1 [2–5].
Table 1.1 Recent Demand Trends of the Major Manufactured Construction Materials | Global Production (Million Metric Ton) |
| Year | Portland Cement | Crude Steel | Primary Aluminium | Plastic |
| 2019 | 4200 | 870 | 63.7 | — |
| 2018 | 4100 | 1808 | 64.4 | 359 |
| 2017 | 4050 | 1732 | 63.4 | 348 |
| Per capita consumption (kg) |
| 2018 | 521 | 225 | 11 | 28 |
From the above table it is evident that the present dimension of the cement industry is much larger than that of other competitive manufactured products. At the same time, it should be borne in mind that the Portland cement is seldom used in the form it is produced. It acts as an essential ingredient in a range of value-added products such as mortars, plasters, renderings, repair materials, and concrete, the global volume of which is many folds higher than that of cement itself. Since the application of cements is significantly diverse with substantial expansion of volumes, the production facilities are generally equipped with machinery and expertise to support the post-production services.
The Portland cement is produced in a large number of countries in various regions of the world. It is reported that the global installed capacity of cement production reached 6.28 billion ton per year in 2016, although the total capacity of the companies listed in the Global Cement Directory in 2018 totalled 4.47 billion ton [6]. Irrespective of the capacity data, the consumption of cement in the world increased fourfold from about 1.0 billion ton in 1990 to about 4.0 billion ton per year in 2017. There has been some contraction in cement production between 2015 and 2018 due to the global economic downturns, but the market forecast presents a positive outlook [1]. The major cement-producing countries of the world are listed in Table 1.2 [7]. The growth pattern indicates that three Asian countries top the list with the volume of production in China accounting for almost 56% of the global production of cement. Another development trend is important to note. The installed capacity of only ten cement companies accounted for over 40% of the total capacity of the listed entities as indicated in Table 1.3.
Table 1.2 Major Cement-Producing Countries of the World and their Recent Production Trends | Production of Cement (Mn t) |
| Serial No. | Country (Number of Facilities in 2017) | Average Capacity per Facility in 2017 (t/d) | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 |
| 1 | China (861) | 7000 | 2220 | 2200 | 2200 |
| 2 | India (264) | 3000 | 290 | 380 | 320 |
| 3 | Vietnam (89) | 2400 | 79 | 90 | 95 |
| 4 | USA (105) | 2200 | 86 | 87 | 89 |
| 5 | Egypt (25) | 5800 | 53 | 81 | 76 |
| 6 | Indonesia (42) | 4200 | 65 | 75 | 74 |
| 7 | Iran (86) | 1700 | 54 | 58 | 60 |
| 8 | Russia (63) | 2400 | 55 | 54 | 57 |
| 9 | Brazil (98) | 1500 | 53 | 53 | 55 |
| 10 | S. Korea (24) | 6400 | 56 | 57 | 55 |
| 11 | Japan (31) | 4900 | 55 | 55 | 54 |
| 12 | Turkey (78) | 2800 | 81 | 72 | 51 |
Table 1.3 Production Capacities of the Top Ten Multinational Cement Enterprises in 2018 | Serial No. | Country of Primary Operation (Name of the Enterprise) | T... |
