ABSTRACT
The global production of cements increased from 1000 million tons in the year 1990 to 4000 million tons in 2013, and the annual world production continues to remain above 4000 million tons even in recent years, despite the economic slowdowns and other socio-political problems. The production of cement is overwhelmingly dependent on natural raw materials, and more particularly limestone, and is highly resource-intensive. Even with the significant advancements made by the cement industry in producing different types of blended cements with lower consumption of clinker, the intermediate product in the manufacturing chain, the total consumption of materials is estimated to equal the volume of finished cement produced. Data archiving is also practiced and the past data is in most cases used for only trend visualization. The distributed control systems typically store short-term information required by the operators and plant engineers for different analyses.
