The SLV Cement system implemented in Société des Ciments de Gabès will be expanded soon with the introduction of touchscreen consoles to equip forklifts in the loading areas.

The main goal of this evolution is to allow operators to have a larger control of the loading process, and in case of any doubts, enable the access by supervisors to details and to the responsible of the loading operations.

This week, Cachapuz has received the order confirmation for the implementation of SLV Cement in the of Matola plant of Cimentos de Moçambique, SARL, a company of the Intercement universe. The company operates five plants in the country and has a production capability of 2.9 million tonnes per year.

The project includes the automation of truck parking, weighbridges, bulk loading silo and bags warehouse using the new platform SLV Cement.

Cachapuz has had the pleasure of having a conversation with its valuable Indian partner, Mr. Er. Bikramjit Singh, director of the company String Automation.

String Automation’s main goal is to ensure maximum customer satisfaction therefore is always seeking to find world-class advanced technology. It is precisely here that Cachapuz comes into the equation!

The partnership between the two companies began in November 2010. String Automation investigated and studied the best companies in the market and the choice fell on Cachapuz. Since then, the relationship between the companies became increasingly strong and mutual reliable because String Automation sees Cachapuz as a responsible company and leader in the quality of products and services.

String Automation has strongly benefited from Cachapuz’s advanced technology with respect to software solutions for the automation of logistics processes of industrial weighing, particularly with the SLV Cement solution.

Mr. Er. Bikramjit Singh relates some of the advantages pointed out by the clients:
– The process of ‘weigh in and weigh out “is done while the driver is sitting in the truck, thus benefiting from the practical nature of the solution;
– Reduction of pollution within the plant due to the even distribution of trucks;
– Increased employee productivity due to the clear vision they have on the availability of trucks through the control panel;
– Materials are loaded and unloaded to the right truck and location, since a warning is issued in the case of any inconsistency occurring in the system;
– Automatic printing of all documents and data flows has optimized the time management and also the organization of the associated processes to the entry and exit of trucks.

Er. Bikramjit states that it is of utmost importance that Cachapuz is a company “with a focus on quality. (…) The SLV Cement solution is a robust and sustainable solution that has proven its quality and efficiency around the world, ever since its first installation in 1997. “

Under invitation, Cachapuz was present in the event ” Supplier networks, Developing Together – Universe of Cimpor Suppliers” by Cimpor – Cimentos de Portugal SGPS, SA”, our weighing business partner, in association with AICEP, which took place on June, the 6th at the Champalimaud Foundation in Lisbon.

The event allowed Cachapuz to strengthen the connection and the work developed for several years with CIMPOR, through the Group InterCement and to establish further new business connections with other suppliers of the cement group, as well as to access to a set of valuable information.

Cachapuz has had a combined and strategic partnership with CIMPOR for more than 20 years, starting in Portugal and gradually in different parts of the world. This event allowed the company from Braga to form new business connections with other suppliers of the cement group, in order to create and develop actions for new opportunities and markets.

According to the company, the main goal of the action “Developing Together” was to deepen CIMPOR relationships with the network of national suppliers in the areas of “Services” and “Materials/ Parts/ Equipment”.

CIMPOR is currently considered one of the 10 largest international cement plants in the world. With the capacity to produce 38 million tons of cement per year, the cement plant not only operates in Portugal, but also in countries like Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Egypt, South Africa, Mozambique, Cape Verde and also in a project in Angola. Its activity extends to the production and sale of concrete and aggregates.

SLV Cement, created and developed by Cachapuz, won the trust of the Reliance Cement plant, belonging to one of the largest economic groups in the Indian market.

Established in 2007, Reliance Cement Company Private Limited (RCCPL) is a company of the Reliance Group, a leader in several business areas such as telecommunications, energy, infrastructure, financial services, media and entertainment. With over 230 million customers, the Reliance Group touches the lives of one in 10 Indians every day, extending its commercial presence to over 20,000 towns and 450,000 villages in India, globally sprawling to the five continents.

Reliance Cement aims to lead the market of cement production and become a player in the creation and development of infrastructures in India. For this, they have entrusted the SLV Cement software and automation solutions which provides the optimization of all the logistic processes in the cement plant..

Learn more about the industrial unit in www.reliancecement.com

The SLV Cement solution was recently adjudicated by the Société des Ciments de Gabès in Tunisia, which is a company belonging to the SECIL Group since the year 2000. This was one of the many steps in the modernization of this Tunisian cement plant, located in the Southern part of this North African country where its main market can be found.

The SLV Cement Bags Loading Module is composed by an industrial PanelPC with wireless connectivity that runs the SLV Cement Loading Module for the management of pallets loading with forklifts. The PanelPC is installed onboard of the forklift, so that the operator can:

1. access the necessary information to perform the loading operation without the need to exit the forklift;
2. manage the calling of the next vehicles and register the start, pause and end of the operations.

The authorized operators logon to the system (the module is protected with login and password), select the warehouse (in case the forklift can load product from different warehouses of the plant) to obtain the list of pending operations (and related information, such as license plate of the truck, type of product, requested quantity, current service time for quality of service purposes, etc.) and to ultimately manage and control those operations (start, pause, resume and end). At the end of each operation, SLV Cement automatically integrates the loading information with the ERP and calls the next truck (or trucks) waiting in the parking area to load, depending on the availability of the warehouse and other process rules, thus improving the loading processes and reducing the turnaround time (TAT) for these operations.

Optionally and if required, this module can used to read through wireless the weight of a weighing platform installed on the warehouse to weight the forklift with the pallets or directly from an onboard weighing system installed on the forklift. By doing this, SLV Cement Bags Loading Module on the PanelPC will be able to read the weight of the pallets and calculate the final NET weight of each type of product on the truck. If the weighing platforms are certified for commercial applications (metrological approved), SLV Cement can perform the Weight-out operation for this process directly in the warehouse and the truck can use a fast exit lane without weighbridge at the end of the process.

Efficiency on the Move!

The improved SLV Cement Dashboard Module enhances the SLV Cement features for traceability and visibility of the trucks in the plant.

With this module users can design de layout of the plant with point & click and drag & drop features, in order to represent all relevant areas of the plants such as the parking area, the entrance/exit gates, weighing zones, bags loading warehouses, bulk and clinker loading silos and raw materials unloading zones. This is done on top of a background image with the map/CAD of the plant (which can be configured for a more realistic representation of the plant with areas and roads).

Associated to each particular area of the plant, SLV Cement Dashboard can show, for instance, how many trucks are in each area in an easy and user friendly mode, complementing the other analysis tools of the system. Because of the configurability and flexibility features of this new module, it can be used to show different types of information in each area, such as performance statistics and KPI (average time spent by the trucks in each zone, the total amount/quantity of product loaded/unloaded in each zone, etc.) and it can also be configured to monitor the network connection of each kiosk on each area of the plant. Other information can be presented in this module, taking advantage of all the information and logs automatically generated by the system.

This module has certainly improved the user experience when using the SLV Cement solution. Have we conquered your interest?

The new version of the innovative dispatching solution for cement plants – SLV Cement is the result of years of experience and acquired know-how when implementing SLV Cement in cement plants worldwide, complemented by the extensive research and development tasks performed by Cachapuz.

The new SLV Cement solution was built taking into account the changes in the computing and communication world, which is leading us to a more connected world where mobile devices and cross-platform solutions are requested by the market. In the cement industry this is also the case: users and agents from all departments (such as maintenance, logistics, commercial, dispatching and management) which interact with IT systems are also demanding the ability to use their applications and the possibility to access to information across several devices and platforms in order to take control of the inbound and outbound processes in their plants.

To read the complete press release and additional information about the solution, videos, case studies, main customers, references and news, please visit the SLV Cement website.

Cachapuz has launched a new SLV Cement Digital Signage Module, composed by a large size Kiosk with a 42” LCD screen, running the new and configurable SLV Cement Digital Signage software. This new module can be applied in several areas of the plant such as maintenance and control rooms, truck drivers’ waiting rooms in the parking zone, dispatch offices, security gates, etc. Due to the offered features of flexibility and configurability, it can be used for different purposes depending on the project and the customer’s requirements.

The SLV Cement Digital Signage Kiosk can be configured with different types of information in various formats such as charts, tables, web pages, IP Cameras monitoring, TV channels or videos and can automatically refresh its contents in pre-configured intervals, therefore presenting the most relevant and updated data to its users. Because of the flexibility of the software’s frontend, kiosks can be mounted in “landscape” or “portrait” position and the type and number of different displayed panels can be configured as necessary.