3.2 → 0.5 / qtr
Unplanned Kiln Stops
14%
ID Fan Energy Saving
12
Assets with Condition Monitoring
28
Submeters Installed
The Challenge
The plant operates two rotary kilns, four cement mills, and a network of conveyors and fans consuming over 8 MW of installed electrical capacity. Electricity and fuel costs account for more than 35% of total production cost, but the operations team had no visibility into energy consumption at the equipment level — only a monthly utility bill. Critical equipment such as kiln drive motors, mill gearboxes, and separator fans had no vibration or temperature monitoring; breakdowns were only discovered when equipment tripped, causing unplanned kiln stops that took 6–12 hours to recover. Maintenance was carried out on a fixed time-based schedule regardless of actual equipment condition.
The Solution
Deployed Energy Management and Condition Monitoring on MACHHUB. Twenty-eight smart submeters were installed at the MCC panels of all major equipment via Modbus RTU, providing equipment-level kWh and kW demand readings updated every minute. Vibration and bearing temperature sensors were installed on the two kiln main drives, four mill gearboxes, and six critical fans — each sensor communicates via IO-Link to an IO-Link master, which converts the data to Modbus TCP for transmission to MACHHUB. Baseline vibration signatures were established for each asset during normal operation; MACHHUB raises an alert when any asset deviates beyond defined thresholds, giving the maintenance team advance warning before a trip occurs.
The Result
Within four months, the team identified two mill gearboxes running at consistently elevated bearing temperatures during peak load — both were serviced proactively before failure. Unplanned kiln stops due to ancillary equipment failure reduced from an average of 3.2 per quarter to 0.5 per quarter. Equipment-level energy data revealed that Kiln 1's induced draft fan was drawing 18% more power than its design spec at equivalent throughput — an investigation found a partially blocked inlet damper, which when cleared reduced the fan's energy draw by 14%.
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