Anhui Conch works with China Telecom and Huawei to roll out 5G smart plant

A 5G end-to-end smart factory system developed by China Telecom and Huawei is enabling Anhui Conch to reduce its energy consumption and increased its productivity, resource utilisation and profitability, according to Conch Group Deputy General Manager, Hé Chengfa.

It has taken two years to develop and implement the smart factory concept, with the first going into production in Chuzhou, Anhui province. "The cement factory has been transformed into a smart factory end-to-end," said Mr Hé.

"By developing smart energy, our energy consumption can be reduced by two per cent, and labour productivity has gone up by 20 per cent, and resource utilisation by four per cent," he added.

Conch Group started with 4G mobile technology in its smart cement factories, but in August 2019 it moved to 5G, working with China Telecom and Huawei. "We piloted 5G in two places, one factory in Chuzhou and the other in Wuhu," said Mr Hé. Wuhu is about 100km south of Chuzhou. 

"By marrying artificial intelligence (AI), 5G and cloud, we were able to monitor equipment status. AI enables remote control and operation, manual inspection workload has been reduced a lot and inspection efficiency is tripled and quadrupled." He calculates that "once autonomous driving is rolled out, mining efficiency can be gained by 30 per cent and the operation could become 24/7." 

"We have collaborated with the China Cement Association and published the 5G Smart Cement Bluebook, detailing the application scenarios for 5G technologies in smart cement factories, using our projects as case study," said Mr Hé.

"If only one of the 40 production lines can be equipped with such technologies, we can gain CNY1bn a year." That's the equivalent of US$146m. "We represent 10 per cent of the Chinese market," he continued. "If the solutions can be rolled out across the industry, the yearly gain will amount to CNY10bn (US$1.46bn)."