Page 53 - IBT Sept 2021 (1)

Cement
Manufacturing:
Bangladesh
Striving for
Global
standard
A new resurgent Bangladesh aspires to emerge as an
infrastructural icon in the realm of development. Shah Cement,
the market leader in the cement industry is leading the way in
this initiative. The company has already invested in World's
Largest Vertical Roller Mill Technology recognized by Guinness
World Records. In an exclusive interview with ICE Business
Times, Hafiz Sikander, Director Operations of Shah Cement
illuminates us on the company's pursuit for technological
excellence and its dream for building a prosperous
Bangladesh.
Y with the technology lead to the discovery
ou’ve served Shah Cement for more than 15 years. Can
you tell us about the operations you oversee and are in
charge of?
I look after the total manufacturing operation, starting from
implementing and improvising the vision of the company by
strengthening the leadership; to improve the quality of living
across Bangladesh. Shah Cement has always led the way in
new innovations. The newest addition to its efforts is the
World’s Largest Vertical Roller Mill (VRM).
In the last 18 years we evolved from a basic Ball Mill to the
present having state of art AI enabled World’s Largest VRM &
Horizontal Roller Press. Shah Cement Industries Ltd. is the
largest cement producing plant in Bangladesh, now with a
Photograph: Courtesy At Shah Cement, safety and quality gets the highest priority. I
capacity of 10 million metric tons per annum.
am directly involved in the selection and sourcing of raw
materials that stand up to the quality we aspire towards.
Through strict monitoring and control of product quality in all
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the stages, we ensure that quality is never
compromised, and with the implementation
of Level-3 automation, we have the capacity
to monitor and control operations remotely.
Shah Cement has achieved an un-beaten
track record of continuous product
conformance to quality standard in all
testing labs for the last 18 years. We have
successfully established a culture of
continuous development in all operation
parameters. These parameters can be
fine-tuned to meet specific customer
requirements and minimize lead time
between product ordering to customers
receiving them.
How have you shaped the company’s
Quality Management Policy for Shah
Cement to become an industry leader?
We believe that we provide a construction
solution to the customers and treat quality
as “a pursuit of excellence”. Our employees
are dedicated to quality training in order to
ensure our reputation for outstanding
quality can permeate throughout the
country. Being a market leader for more
than a decade at a stretch means, we needed
to work in a way that the customers trust
the quality of Shah Cement and we have
managed to do that successfully so far.
As a manufacturing industry, sustaining
quality is a major concern in the cement
sector. We have heavily invested on
international standards for quality
equipment as well as in-house test facilities
to protect the brand value of Shah Cement.
Since the beginning we have adopted the
latest technology in our production and
quality control system. Added care along
and correction of “bugs” in the production
system. Investing in training means
investing in quality. Whenever we invest in
training, our employees work more
understand their job and can find ways to
improve. Having said that, we always
knowledgeably and efficiently since they
considered that training begins with people
in leadership positions.
Tell us about the World's Largest VRM
technology and what makes it
The futuristic cement plants will be
revolutionary?
digital-heavy to ensure sustainability and to
achieve competitive advantages over other
market players. Embracing digitalization
and innovation is and will be the key driving factor of the 21st
century. Globally leading cement producers have already
embarked on the path to digitalization and are thriving.
Worlds’ biggest building materials companies deployed a
digital solution to derive decisions from big data in their
facilities spanning worldwide. This digitized solution
deployment was not only about the production system, but
also covered day-to-day operations like finances as well. This
kind of data-driven decision making definitely benefits the
rock-solid base for automation and optimizes the production
potential. It also massively helps the manufacturers to reduce
waste in terms of money and manpower, which makes them
more sustainable and eco-friendly.
Shah Cement is the leading cement brand of Bangladesh and
we are bringing breakthrough technology in our cement
production operations through the use of Artificial Intelligence
(AI) powered Vertical Roller Mill (VRM.). Shah Cement has set
the Guinness World Record for the world’s largest vertical
roller cement mill in 2019. The OK81-6™ vertical mill, set up in
The World’s Largest VRM has incorporated the latest
Shah Cement plant, was manufactured by FLSmidth of
Denmark.
advancements in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI). The
Intelligent Monitoring Control System evaluates every stage of
the production process from a central computer panel. If any
operation on the machine encounters a problem, the Artificial
Intelligence will be able to identify the problem and solve it
eliminates the chance of a human error. This groundbreaking
technology ensures consistent and uninterrupted production of
with its built-in tools. This superior technology largely
high-quality cement and that makes VRM a revolutionary
machine.
The Guinness World Record holding VRM machine has
certainly upped the stakes in the industry – before we
Cement’s technology partner FLSmidth?
discuss the technology further, can you talk about Shah
For over three decades vertical roller mill technology has been
recognized across the world for the production of superior
quality cement and for its efficient energy management.
FLSmidth of Denmark is one of the leading
technology providers for Cement Vertical
Roller Mill with a long and proven track
record. FLSmidth designed a new cement
vertical roller mill capable of large-scale
cement production with a state-of-the-art
quality management system. They
incorporated the most advanced AI and
digital technology in their design and were
looking for a suitable partner to implement
the design. Shah Cement decided to partner
with FLSmidth to commission the world’s
most advanced and the largest vertical mill machine and deep-learning algorithms that create their own
in cement manufacturing.
The VRM machine can produce many
varieties of cement at once. Can you
talk us through the options and what understanding of a process by finding patterns in the raw
makes Shah Cement’s cement the
process data. They then use this understanding to solve
sustainable choice?
problems that help improve performance and sustainability
The industry is currently facing increasing
As one practical example of AI at work, the facility's predictive
high-quality cement to cater to different
demands for diverse compositions of modeling process data signals that are either unreliable or
unavailable – such as real-time clinker quality measurements,
mega projects. Another important aspect of these are then used to create
the new Shah Cement facility is the addition a more accurate model and
of a multi-compartment silo. This will give
us the flexibility to ensure steady supply of controller of the actual
customized cement formulations to the exact process conditions.
requirement of mega projects without The benefits of AI controlled
disrupting normal production. The newly operations is an improved
ability to maintain optimal
introduced 'multi-compartment silo', together set points and faster
with the largest VRM in the world, will be
able to produce cement of different response to conditions that
compositions according to the different may result in undesirable
requirements in a much more efficient way. situations. AI is opening the
door to create new solutions
We are proud to introduce the world’s most that efficiently offer more
equipped with state-of-the-art AI-systems control solutions, which is a
advanced cement technology to the
value, to further improve the
Bangladesh cement market.
intelligence of our process
The record-winning VRM at Shah Cement is
big part of our commitment
that are guided by data-driven algorithms.
to make Shah Cement plant
With the integrated Intelligence Monitoring
smarter, more productive and
System and Intelligent Knowledge Solution,
increasingly sustainable.
the cement production at Shah Cement is not
increased production and improved product
Knowledge Solution help to reduce waste?
quality.
The world's largest Vertical Roller miller is also equipped with
only automated, but also has reduced waste, How do Intelligence Monitoring System and Intelligent
Tell us about the function of the AI a built-in knowledge solution system. Built-in tools in the
system that is guided by data-driven Intelligent Knowledge Solution keep the VRM updated with the
algorithms. AI is essentially supposed latest best available data through the FLSmidth cloud
to improve operations – are we networks and resource system. It’s guided digitally, by a
potentially glimpsing a future of the
process can be machine driven and not process-knowledge experts to follow the best course of
system coupled with analytics-driven maintenance and
cement industry where the entire
operation and troubleshooting. Any problems faced by the
require human intervention?
machine can be resolved with no manual intervention which
These new AI technologies are based on
ensures a high run factor.