New Equipment Built For Your Facility Is The Key To Eliminating Downtime, Optimizing Material Flow And Meeting Increased Production Demands.
By Andrew Parker
The North American ready-mix concrete (RMC) market is set for substantial growth, projected to surge to nearly $85 billion by 2028. Cement plants can boost profits by improving material flow, eliminating downtime from older or misapplied equipment and optimizing production.
This is why modernizing conveying systems is so crucial.
Because concrete is the second most-used substance behind water, it’s no surprise the global concrete industry is flirting with overcapacity for production due largely to increased demands and rising prices. This includes the North American cement market, where predictions are for a steady surge – particularly in RMC – through 2027-2028.
The uptick is reflected in the revenue growth of three key sectors: industrial, residential, and infrastructure – the latter of which has some 40,000 projects planned across all 50 states in the United States, as part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
Cement operations can prepare to meet these increasing demands and reap the profit rewards by modifying their operational systems. This begins with modernizing – and standardizing – equipment for each stage of the production process.
The Value of Cement Plant Modernization
Cement plant layouts emphasize the critical importance of the raw material transfer process, which includes properly implementing key capital equipment like belt and drag chain conveyors, bucket elevators, and metering bins.
Older plants often have equipment inefficiencies or operate in improperly controlled conditions. This results in higher-than-normal energy use, such as heat loss at the kiln or strain on conveyors that are unable to efficiently transfer large volumes of abrasive or hot material.
Problems like these can disrupt every stage of cement production, from mining the raw materials all the way to the finished product.
If operations don’t implement the right equipment strategy, conveyors – especially older conveyors – can easily be misapplied for the material volume, composition, temperature or the facility layout. This will lead to several problems:
- Higher energy and operating costs.
- Inefficient production.
- Increased downtime from equipment breakdowns.
- Unsafe conditions for operators.
Thus, the biggest opportunity for cement plants to increase revenue, lower energy costs and improve production is through standardizing and modernizing equipment.
Benefits of Equipment Standardization
Efficiency gives cement plants a competitive advantage, and this starts with installing conveying equipment tailored to handle difficult raw materials. But more than that, standardizing equipment should be a key part of any strategic modernization project.
With so many stages of cement production and high costs of materials, traditional methods for maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO) at most facilities are becoming obsolete.
Cement operations that also standardize their equipment can realize several critical benefits, including:
- Seamless spec processes.
- Reduction of competitive bids.
- Ease of maintenance.
- Simplified operator training.
- Direct OEM support.
- Smaller on-site inventory.
- Reduced waste.
- Energy savings.
Meeting Fugitive Dust Regulations
Another major benefit to equipment standardization is utilizing modern, enclosed conveying systems. This provides dust control, improves efficiency at material transfer points, keeps the plant safe and maintains EPA compliance.
Working with a single equipment manufacturer eases the strain on plant managers, maintenance coordinators and supervisors to stay on top of production processes without navigating multiple expenditures and sources for parts, maintenance and support.
With industry growth on the horizon and production demands set to rise, one thing is clear: cement plants that modernize and standardize their equipment will cash in.
Andrew Parker is president for CDM Systems Inc. He has more than 20 years of experience in the bulk material handling industry, He oversees operations including conveyor design and development. Reach him at [email protected].
