My Opinion on "Intelligent Manufacturing" of Peak Cement

Now we are in an era of technological explosion. The emergence of 5G, Internet of Things, big data, artificial intelligence and other technologies is both an opportunity and a challenge for the cement industry. How to transform from traditional manufacturing to modern "intelligent" manufacturing is worthy of our attention, and it is also a problem that must be faced.

Not long ago, I had the honor to participate in the China Cement Intelligent Summit Forum held in Luoyang and the cement industry intelligent factory construction training organized by the group. I felt deeply about how cement production enterprises can move from "manufacturing" to "intelligent manufacturing" "There are also some thoughts. Next, I would like to talk about some views on the "intelligent manufacturing" of cement based on our experience in information and intelligent management since the trial production of Huangping Jianfeng Cement Company.

The information framework of Guizhou Huangping Peak is shown in the figure. The three systems of ERP, MES and DCS are taken as the core, supplemented by advanced equipment such as mine belt analyzer and automatic loading machine, which form the basic framework of information technology. Among them, DCS and ERP systems have been put into use with good results and saved a lot of labor costs. The management of production data will be easier after the MES system goes online.

Figure 1 Guizhou Huangping Peak Basic Information Framework

From some phenomena in the trial production process of Guizhou Huangping Peak, I think that when further promoting the construction of information and intelligent system, we must pay attention to the following aspects:

1. The acceptance ability of grass-roots employees. Some grass-roots employees do not have a high level of computer operation, and it is difficult to get started with more complex system operations. In addition, three shifts during production make it impossible to conduct centralized training for all operators. The instruction manual alone is not enough to make them proficient in operation, thus affecting work efficiency. On the other hand, some employees think that the intelligent system will pose a threat to their work after it goes online, resulting in resistance. How to solve this problem, on the one hand, we need to organize some information training for grass-roots employees in our spare time, and we can also organize some operation competitions. On the other hand, we should let them know that intelligent informatization will only eliminate the same employees. We should follow the trend and change from the on-site operator to the operator of the information system. The information system is to facilitate the work of employees rather than to replace the work of employees.

2. Big data analytics capabilities must be further strengthened. Most of our systems in Huang Ping Peak have a high degree of automation and informatization, but their intelligence needs to be improved. Except for cross-band analyzers and expert systems that are not online, other systems cannot make automatic adjustment or advance warning and situation prediction according to production data. Most systems can only automatically collect data. As for the analysis of the data and the following decisions, it is up to the user to analyze and implement. Real intelligence should have its own big data platform, analyze production data and business data, draw corresponding conclusions, and play a guiding role in the operation of users.

3. Prevent "information silos". The "information island" of an enterprise refers to a computer application system that is developed or introduced independently, commissioned or introduced by different departments within the enterprise, which is not functionally related to each other, information is not shared and exchanged, and information is disconnected from business processes and applications. Although the data connection among DCS, MES and ERP systems under the framework of Guizhou Huangping peak informatization is good, if the data of OA system and labor management system can be integrated into ERP system, the work efficiency of employees can be further improved and the tedious problem of multi-system operation switching can be improved.

4. Cement intelligent market constraints. At present, the cement industry cannot have professional and mature intelligent business solutions like the mechanical processing and manufacturing industry, and there are also professional intelligent equipment integrators in the market, which can complete the intelligent construction of the entire production base in one stop. For the cement industry as a whole, there are few intelligent hardware and software integrators. The intelligence of the cement industry is obviously "crossing the river by feeling the stones". It relies on other intelligent means to apply mature solutions to the cement industry and uses some solutions after a series of "soil and water improvement" to meet the application of the cement industry. The trial and error cost during this period is very large. The uninterrupted production and sales of cement have great restrictions on the debugging of the system, while the imported mature integrated solutions are monopolized and the cost remains high. Most cement plants still choose intelligent solutions for a certain aspect. This will easily cause incompatibility of multiple systems and easily form "information islands", resulting in the inability to efficiently and economically meet the requirements of the intelligent development of the cement industry. Therefore, enterprises should communicate more with intelligent solution providers, and then combine their own industry experience with advanced intelligent technology, taking software and hardware as research and development objects at the same time, and taking their own enterprises as trial and error objects to form intelligent business solutions for cement enterprises, which can be extended to corresponding brother units. If so, it can greatly reduce the cost of trial and error, improve the degree of intelligence and cement industry, so as to promote the intelligent development of the cement industry of the whole group.

China Cement Intelligent Summit Forum also organized participants to visit local advanced cement enterprises. After seeing so many advanced intelligent application solutions, I think that if the technology becomes more mature in the future, the monopoly phenomenon is gradually alleviated, and the cost of the solution is greatly reduced, we can create an improvement scheme for the existing intelligent factory construction through the following aspects:

1. Intelligent monitoring: through monitoring equipment, the behaviors of employees and drivers at on-site import and export, bulk discharge outlets and dangerous operation points are detected, and warnings are issued to make certain restrictions. For example, it is impossible to enter the on-site workshop without wearing safety helmet, and it is impossible to carry out bulk feeding without wearing safety belt, etc. Reduce the occurrence of safety accidents to a certain extent. Safety is the top priority of production. At present, many drivers have uneven cultural levels and fluke mentality. Coupled with the pursuit of unmanned logistics card management, it is difficult for us to restrict the behavior of drivers. If the system strengthens their behavior Supervision can effectively reduce the occurrence of accidents and avoid adverse effects on enterprises.

2. Flow direction control: through the intelligent terminal composed of GPS and load sensor, the location and cargo status of each transport vehicle are obtained and sent to the cloud server. Managers can directly in the mobile phone or monitoring center, real-time monitoring of each vehicle is illegal flow phenomenon. This can greatly reduce the phenomenon of fleeing goods and is conducive to the maintenance of market order, but the current unit price of smart terminals is too high and it is difficult to popularize.

3. Smart Mine: Mine is the most important resource for cement production enterprises. Green mine has always been an important work target of cement enterprises under our peak. However, most of the current intelligence is aimed at the factory and insufficient attention is paid to the requirements of mine intelligence. Whether mines can effectively use resources is related to the sustainable development of enterprises. At present, 5G technology is developing rapidly. If 5G base stations are built on mines and Beidou high-precision navigation 5G high-precision maps are used, brand-new application fields such as unmanned vehicles, unmanned mining, unmanned aerial vehicle remote inspection, personnel intelligent control, etc. will be opened up, greatly reducing the risks of mining and transportation, and better meeting the requirements of green mines. However, due to the fact that most mines still choose outsourcing operation mode and the high cost of 5G Beidou's driverless solution, there is still a long way to go.

Smart is both an opportunity and a challenge. For large-scale cement companies like Jianfeng, whoever can follow the tide of the times and stand firm in the tide of "intelligent manufacturing" will occupy the commanding heights in the next round of industry competition. The road to the transformation of the cement industry to intelligence is destined to be long. How we find the characteristic intelligent solutions that belong to our own enterprises or even groups in the wave of the times is bound to be a new topic that we need to constantly explore. (Yu Wang Yang)