This week saw more activity around digitalisation in the cement sector as Titan signed an MoU with Sinoma on net zero innovations, and FLSmidth and Carbon Re announced their AI technology link-up.
Plant efficiency is a priority for the cement sector as it strives to increase productivity and ramp up decarbonisation efforts, prompting producers to accelerate their adoption of emerging digital technologies. In McKinsey's 2020 white paper on ‘The 21st Century cement plant: Greener and more connected’, it was estimated that by implementing digitalisation measures, cement producers could make a margin gain of US$4-9/t of cement. Holcim has already stated that it is scaling up its use of artificial intelligence in manufacturing across more than 100 cement plants over the next four years through its 'Plants of Tomorrow' initiative.
Moreover, digitalisation is seen as a key decarbonisation tool. The World Economic Forum has stated that digital solutions can deliver the 20 per cent reduction in GHGs for high-emission industries that the International Energy Agency says is needed by 2050.
Industrial tech transformation
Reaching these targets is only achieved with the careful selection of digital solutions, and perhaps more importantly, a change in management thinking about recruitment and retention of the people that have the skill set for leadership in digitalisation. While digitalisation may be seen as a major risk to job creation, having the right people at the helm remains critical for its success. Digitalisation companies maintain that it is crucial to ‘keep people at the forefront of your project’.
Titan has seen the need to build an ecosystem of digital innovation. It hopes that collaboration over digitalisation solutions, as seen in the Sinoma and Titan deal, will help generate new ideas and create a wider talent pool of people to discover the best solutions. This means upskilling the existing workforce and partnering with new external collaborators, including academics and start-ups.
Cemex is perhaps the king of this approach. It has continually looked to build expertise to accelerate innovation by signing multi-year contracts with digital collaborators such as IBM, HCL Technologies, Neoris, Axians, Tata Consultancy Services, Avasant and ServiceNow. The rewards are expected to be big with Cemex calculating savings of US$100m annually with next-generation digital deployment under its ‘Working Smarter’ initiative.
Race to the top
Getting organised is a priority for multinationals. Argos operates its digital vision through Summa, a dedicated service centre for emerging technologies and digitalisation. Like Cemex, Argos too has built partnerships with global technology giants like Google, Amazon, SAP, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and Cisco. The company estimates it has “approximately 100 experts on digital topics, with skills in robotics, data science, AI, cloud computing and machine learning, among others.”
Digitalisation is creating a race to reach the top. Dr Dominik von Achten, Heidelberg Materials’ chairman of the Managing Board, says “Our ambition is to become the first industrial tech company in the sector.” Similarly, other cement producers want to be the first to capture the full benefits of digitalisation. This has in turn started a scramble for a new breed of highly skilled tech employees, and the hunt for wider collaborations and partnerships with leading digital experts.