ABSTRACT
Cement manufacturing has a long history and an admirable track record of adopting contemporary technologies all along its history. The process control design changed with time from simple mechanical on–off systems to electronic distributed control systems with programmable logic controls at subsystem-level with capability of proportional–integral–derivative functions. Now the manufacturing industry is on the verge of embracing industrial internet-of-things with Industry 4.0 standard. The goal is to equip itself with smart factories having cyber-physical systems capable of adopting autonomous operation. Since this transformation of the industry from automatic processing to autonomous operation involves the application of advanced tools and techniques of artificial intelligence involving machine learning, big data analytics, and cloud-based services, it is important to understand the basic concepts of these emerging technologies and advancements made in these areas for process industries. This chapter is intended to review the technological status of automated processes and the way forward for cement manufacturing to advance into the realm of autonomous operation.
