Eurocement, with the support of GlowByte, completed testing of the Digital Assistant to the Cement Mill Operator system

2022: Completion of "Digital Assistant Cement Mill Operator" tests

EuroCement, with the support of GlowByte, completed pilot testing of the Digital Assistant to the Cement Mill Operator intelligent system. The project was carried out at the Petersburg Cement enterprise in Leningrad Region. GlowByte announced this on January 13, 2023.

The software product is designed to increase the efficiency of cement grinding through the use of predictive analytics in the technological process. As a result of the tests, it was possible to achieve an increase in the performance indicator by 1.9-2.6%.

Dry cement production is a modern and highly automated production process. Under these conditions, it becomes possible to use the collected data to find the optimal mode of grinding clinker in a ball mill, providing operators with new control capabilities. As in any continuous production, the achieved effect of 1.9-2.6% of productivity and up to 3-4% of energy efficiency accumulates and gives significant overall savings on the horizon of the year, - commented Alexey Chubenko, Information Technology Director of Eurocement.

Digital assistant is based on process data recorded by automation of production equipment and used in APCS. The user interface is available in the working areas of ball cement mill operators and process engineers.

Cement milling is a feedback process in which undertreated material is separated by a separator and constantly returned to the beginning. Therefore, the key task of the system is to predict possible process parameters depending on the control actions available to operators. Feed and Management Recommendations separation is calculated on the basis of mathematical optimization, technological constraints and heuristic rules from the practice of mill operators. The operator can either accept or reject the recommendation by specifying the basis. Similar comments are valuable for the further development of the system and the generalization of the experience of specialists.

The digital assistant that we have developed for EuroCement realizes the key value in Industry 4.0 - to squeeze savings from the available data of the technical process, - said Alexander Tomilov, executive director of the industrial Internet of Things practice GlowByte. - Continuous production generates data every second, and algorithmachine training summarizes the possible results of control actions under all observed conditions. Thus, it becomes possible to transfer experience and methods of process control from the best operators to all specialists.

The use of the assistant has already shown a positive effect and the readiness of operators to use the recommendations. We plan to extend the use of the system to other enterprises of the group with similar equipment, - added Alexey Chubenko.