CASE STUDYCement Manufacturing

How cement manufacturers

prevent quality, throughput, emissions and energy losses

with Seebo

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The Challenge

Achieving kiln stability & optimizationMost cement manufacturers face regular production losses in quality, throughput, emissions and energy efficiency. Very often, the causes of these losses are driven by inefficiencies in the production process itself - and much of the time, these inefficiencies are related to the kiln.

Stabilizing the kiln at optimal levels of efficiency is crucial, and will drive savings in many different areas: from energy efficiency, to increased production capacity. Stabilizing the kiln can also bring down NOx emissions levels, enabling the factory to better reach their emissions goals.

The Goals

Reduce energy cost per ton

clinker - 5.6%

Increase clinker quality - 4.2%

Increase kiln feed capacity - 3.3%

Reduce NOx emissions 11.9%

$780,000 extra profit on single line

$521,000 in energy savings on a single line

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Interestingly, the kiln does sometimes achieve higher-than-average efficiency rates. This is usually the case in cement manufacturing plants throughout the world - their production lines, and specifically the kiln, are already capable of achieving the desired efficiency range some of the time. That means the potential for improvement is already there.

The question is: how can they increase the amount of time the kiln is operating at those levels? This, of course, can only be achieved by reducing the process inefficiencies that prevent the kiln from reaching that target range.

But the production processes related to the kiln are dynamic and complex, and each day is a new struggle to maintain the kiln at acceptable levels. Even with a team of experienced process engineers, equipped with analytics tools, finding the true root cause of kiln instability is extremely difficult.

The Solution

Identifying & preventing the hidden causes of production lossesThe Seebo solution enables process experts to identify the hidden causes of their production losses, and gain clear recommendations as to how to prevent those process inefficiencies.

Furthermore, production teams receive real-time alerts as soon as those inefficiencies are detected - enabling them to prevent losses before they occur.

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A business-orientated solutionThere are many cement factories in the world - but no two are the same. In fact, every single production line is unique, with its own complexities, challenges and losses.

As a business-orientated solution, Seebo enables every customer to define their own KPIs for a given production line, so they can finally figure out what’s preventing them from achieving their goals.

In this case, the manufacturer has chosen four KPIs, corresponding to their most pressing production losses:

• Kiln AMPs optimization (flat & low)• NH3 - cost optimization• NOx reduction• Increase throughput

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As mentioned, we’ll focus on the first KPI, since the Kiln AMP levels often act as a proxy to numerous production inefficiencies. Optimizing the Kiln AMP can therefore have a positive impact on a wide range of KPIs, including:

WHY

Automated Root Cause Analysis reveals why process-driven losses happen.

HOW

Predictive Recommendations show how to prevent process inefficiencies in the future, and reveal the optimal process settings.

WHEN

Proactive Alerts show when production teams need to take action to prevent losses in real-time.

The aim will be to keep the Kiln AMPs consistently as low as possible within the permitted range, thus preventing these inefficiencies from occurring.

Understanding the process with Process-Based Artificial Intelligence™

Seebo Process-Based Artificial Intelligence™ is a proprietary technology designed to solve complicated process inefficiencies and enable true process mastership - revealing the hidden causes and recommending the right actions.

• Efficient fuel and energy consumption• Efficient electrical consumption• Increased produce quality• Increased throughput• Increased clinker quality,

• Increased refractory lifetime,• Lower maintenance costs• Reduced emissions• Reduced kiln feed variance• SNCR optimization

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Reveal why production losses occur - automated root cause analysis

First, the Seebo solution takes all of the disparate data sources from the production line and unifies them into a single schema, where it’s enriched and cleansed. This includes all relevant data related to the process - from raw material data, to process and quality data, to data on weather conditions and alternative fuels characteristics.

Then, after teaching the algorithms to understand the entire production process, Seebo conducts automated root cause analysis - continuously analysing all the data tags, including the complex interrelationships between them.

In this way Seebo can identify process inefficiencies that aren’t humanly possible to spot, even with self-serve analytics platforms.

Seebo Process-Based Artificial Intelligence™ is more accurate and effective than generic AI solutions, because its AI algorithms are embedded with process

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expertise - combining the context of the unique plant topology, with expertise in the relevant cement manufacturing process. This enables the algorithms to navigate through the unique complexities of each production process and truly understand the data in-context, providing a continuous, multivariate analysis that delivers crystal-clear insights - eliminating data blindspots, and revealing important new insights into the production process that were previously hidden among the data.

The process inefficiencies Seebo identifies are often invisible to the human eye, in part because they are caused by a complex combination of behaviors among the hundreds or thousands of interrelated data tags on the line.

In this case, the Seebo solution discovered that when the Cyclone material temperature is above 800°, and at the same time the Kiln oxygen level was between 1.5% and 2%, the likelihood of a problem with the Kiln AMP increased very significantly.

This is a hugely important insight that the process experts could never have figured out on their own, since both of those tags remained within the permitted range. It was only the unique combination of those two specific ranges of tag values that was causing the losses.

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Know how to prevent losses in the future - predictive recommendations

Having identified the root cause, Seebo creates a set of Predictive Recommendations, which identify the optimal process settings.

For example, to minimize instances of Kiln AMP inefficiencies as much as possible without negatively impacting other production parameters, Seebo recommended optimal values for the Cyclone material temperature and Kiln oxygen level respectively.

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Know when to take action - proactive alerts

These recommendations are then turned into Proactive Alerts, which are delivered to the production team via a simple, intuitive screen as soon as the related process inefficiencies occur.

The alerts include a clear description of the root-causes (e.g. cyclone material temperature above 800° and kiln oxygen level between 1.5% and 2%), as well as a set of Standard Operating Procedures, so production teams knew exactly what to do to fix those issues before losses occur, and when to act.

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The Goal

Higher clinker capacity, significant energy savings & NOx emissions reductionUsing these new insights into their production processes, the manufacturing teams can prevent process inefficiencies and greatly reduce costly production losses from quality, throughput emissions and energy.

More specifically:

4.2% increase in clinker quality + 3.3% increase in kiln feed capacity = $780,000 extra profit on single line

5.6% reduction in energy cost per ton of clinker = $521,000 in energy savings on a single line

Greater kiln stability = 11.9% lower NOx emissions

In addition, by revealing the hidden causes of process inefficiencies, process experts gained a deeper understanding of their production processes in general, with concrete metrics and recommendations. This saves time and effort, as process experts no longer have to spend hours theorizing and guessing the root causes of process inefficiencies.

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Seebo is the Predictive Quality and Yield solution.

Manufacturers use Seebo to predict and prevent quality, yield and waste losses.

Seebo Process-Based Artificial Intelligence™ is designed to solve complicated process inefficiencies - revealing the hidden causes and recommending the right actions. By providing production teams with ready-to-use Artificial Intelligence, continuous process mastership becomes a reality.

With Seebo your team knows why process inefficiencies happen, using Automated Root Cause Analysis; how to prevent process inefficiencies, using Predictive Recommendations; and when to act, using Proactive Alerts.

Seebo customers include leading manufacturers across multiple industries, like Nestle, Mondelez, PepsiCo, Barilla, Allnex and Georgia-Pacific. Seebo is backed by Viola Ventures, 10D, Vertex Ventures and TPY Capital.

For more information, visit www.seebo.com

Schedule a free personalized demo to see how Seebo can eliminate the Complexity Gap and prevent losses at your company