At the end of 2009, reinforcing the confidence in SLV Cement, Secil awarded Cachapuz Bilanciai Group a new order to upgrade the SLV Cement installation at the Outão cement plant. The first SLV Cement installation at Secil Outão consisted of the automation of two entrance and exit zones, the bulk loading zone and the unloading zone. The first entrance, exit and weighing zone included one entry weighbridge, one exit weighbridge, a two-way weighbridge (for weighing trucks in the two directions, entrance and exit) as well as an exit zone without weighbridge (used for trucks that performed the second weighing of the operation in the internal weighbridges). The second access zone included one weighbridge for both entrance and exit operations. Each truck driver uses an RFID card for identification purposes, which identifies the customer, the truck and the loading / unloading operation. The RFID cards are used in the SLV Cement interface kiosks and the system controls all the accesses, authorizing or denying the operations. The SLV Cement solution was also implemented in the loading zones where it controls four bulk loading silos and the loading operations performed in self-service mode by the truck drivers. SLV Cement monitors each loading operation, assuring that only the planned amount is loaded into the trucks. In the raw materials unloading zone the SLV Cement was implemented to automate one weighbridge that is used both for the second weight of the unloading operation and for the first weighing of loading operations, allowing the same truck to perform two operations (unloading and loading) without the need to exit the plant. SLV Cement was integrated with Secil’s Information Service to synchronize loading, unloading and weighing data between the systems. This has enabled the self-service mode of the operations and creating an integrated solution for the customer. The new order to upgrade SLV Cement at Secil Outão included the automation of two new weighbridges at the second entrance and exit, as well as in the weighing zone of the plant. The first weighbridge is dedicated to entrance operations and the second one for exit operations. In this new area, Cachapuz installed three new SLV Cement Kiosks with corresponding control barriers and positioning sensors for access control, weighing, expedition and document printing. The SLV Cement core was also upgraded, including more features and functionalities required by the customer.

Before the SLV Cement implementation, the plant offered only two weighbridges for all the trucks, one for entering the plant and other for exiting the plant. With the SLV Cement installation completed, the plant benefits from additional entrance and exit zones that improve the flow of the trucks. All the raw material unloading operations and the cement loading operations are performed in self-service mode and controlled by using RFID cards, avoiding the need for paperwork and time consuming tasks previously made by the dispatch operators, which required that truck drivers park and exit the truck and walk on foot to the dispatch zone.

The implementation of this new phase of SLV Cement at the Secil Outão plant was finished in January 2010, reinforcing the long term partnership between the two companies. According to Secil: “…the gradual introduction of automatic loading and control equipment at plants and depots has allowed for increasingly meaningful time savings in the collection and transport of cement to construction sites.”

The definition of the project aim was the first and most important task of this work. As it is impossible to simulate infinite possibilities and infinite plant layouts, a “standard cement plant” was defined as a test basis. Based on the most common areas found on the several plants where SLV Cement solution was implemented, this standard cement plant includes the parking area for trucks, entrance and exit zones with weighing capabilities, bulk cement loading zones, bagged cement packing plant and raw materials unloading areas. For each one of the chosen areas, several variables were defined and will be used as input for the simulation models and also as the output for the analysis of the results, like the type and characteristics of the trucks, trucks arrival rating tables, the loading and unloading times, possible paths for the trucks from the parking zone to the exit zone, the distances between the several areas, resources and their capacities, among others.
The simulation tool chosen for this work was Simio, a multi-paradigm simulation software tool that provides a rapid and flexible modeling capability without requiring programming, thus exposing 3D display features to enable more realistic visualization of the simulation models.

The model created is able to produce rich reports when the simulation ends, enabling the complete analysis of the simulated scenario. With these reports it will be possible to analyze how the dispatching processes will be processed before the implementation of SLV Cement solution and, due to the Simio 3D visualization features, it is possible to see a very accurate virtual animation of the trucks’ movement around the several areas of the plant. Moreover, with this simulation project it is possible to analyze, in detail, the impact of all the improvements offered by SLV Cement implementation in the cement plant, for instance:

• The reduction of the weighing time of the trucks due to the self-service kiosks
• The much quicker parking management due to automatic truck calling
• The reduction of the number of human errors due to the automatic management of the dispatching processes by SLV Cement
• The increase of the safety, security and organization within the cement plant
• The increase of the number of dispatched trucks and cement quantities, due to the improvement of the service

The simulation model allows the simulation of several behaviors of the trucks, by changing only the input data. This means that it is also possible to simulate the introduction of new rules for the truck drivers, like adding a schedule for one or more types of products or types of operations (loading/unloading) to a different time of the day (for instance, to a time shift with less number of trucks being dispatched) and see what happens to the processes. Because SLV Cement is a 24/7 self-service solution, the plant will be able to dispatch cement at any hour of the day without extra human resources, and with this simulation model, it will be possible to experiment different schedules in order to achieve the best performance of the processes before really implementing it on the site.

The work developed originated two scientific papers, written for two important simulation conferences:

1. “Using Simio in the Design of Integrated Automated Solutions for Cement Plants”, submitted to The International Workshop on Applied Modeling and Simulation (WASM 2010 in Brazil, Búzios, May 05, 06 and 07, 2010
2. “Using Simulation for the Specification of an Integrated Automated Weighting Solution in a Cement Plant”, submitted to the Winter Simulation Conference 2010 (WSC10 in Baltimore, Maryland, December 5-8, 2010)

Cachapuz Bilanciai Group and University of Minho considered this research and development work very successfully and are already defining the next steps to introduce this know-how and simulation modules in the SLV Cement framework, in order to offer powerful simulation features to the cement plants worldwide. After this first approach, the next step will consist on the development of software tools and modules, to be integrated in SLV Cement, which will be an important asset in determining the plant’s bottlenecks and the areas where SLV Cement’s implementation will enable a significant improvement on the cement plant’s logistic processes.

The number of companies that rely on SLV Cement for the cement dispatching and raw materials reception is growing worldwide. SLV Cement was implemented in all the Portuguese based plants of Secil (Maceira-Liz, Cibra-Pataias, Outão cement plants and also Trofa, Viana do Castelo, Aveiro and Leixões sales depots), Cimpor (Alhandra, Souselas, and Loulé cement plants), Cimentos Madeira, Cimentaçor and Cimentos Europa. With these implementations Cachapuz to achieved 100% market share on this business area in Portugal and started the internationalization process, which lead Cachapuz to implement SLV Cement in other countries. In Spain, SLV Cement was implemented in Cementos Balboa in Alconera zone (Badajoz). In South Africa and Tunisia, Cachapuz has implemented an SLV Cement subset in Cimpor quarries to manage the entrance, exit and weighing processes with SAP integration. In Egypt, in Alexandria, Amreyah Cimpor Cement Company is taking advantage of SLV Cement to manage all the dispatching operations (in which around 800 trucks are automatically dispatched every day, with peaks of 1200 trucks per day). Last year the solution was implemented in Angola, in the new cement plant of Nova Cimangola, and upgraded in Secil Outão cement works in Portugal, with the automation of a new expedition area. In the beginning of 2010, Cachapuz enters the Indian Market through the Jaypee Group (Jaiprakash Associates Limited) and is currently implementing SLV Cement in the main plant of the group, the Rewa Plant. New orders for upgrade of SLV Cement in Secil Maceira and Secil Pataias cement works, which have been working with SLV Cement for more than 15 years, have been issued to Cachapuz Bilanciai Group and will be implemented until the end of 2010.

Case study published on the International Cement Review Magazine, in December, 2010.