Technology
At JK Cement, SAP is the pivot of every function’s data capturing & reporting
Published
6 years agoon
By
admin
Jitendra Singh, Chief Information Officer, JK Cement
Kindly explain to our readers about the SAP platform in brief and when did you go live at JK Cement? How was the journey? Please elaborate.
JK Cement (JKCL) implemented SAP in the year 2009 with core modules like FICO, SD, MM, PP, QM, PM and PS. As usual the "S" curve was observed in the initial implementation and institutionalisation phase, later stabilised to a good extent. Along with core transactional system, we also have SAP BI/BW landscape to cater to the effective MIS and data management respectively.
As the SAP landscape kept on maturing at JKCL, we added a few more functionalities like CRM using SAP C4C, Treasury and Risk Management (TRM), Business Planning and Consolidation (BPC), success factors (HRMS), etc. In the year 2018, we migrated our database to HANA, thereby converting the system as Suite on HANA (SoH), resulting in a much Efficient and Effective ERP with in-memory computing. Also the migration to SoH brought it a step closer to SAP S4/HANA, which is planned for implementation soon.
It is more fashionable for industry to declare that they use SAP. Many times it is seen that even 50 per cent potential of SAP is not used by many? What is your take?
SAP today has evolved as the most trusted platform for capturing the data organisation wide, having appropriate checks and controls built in and equipped with the facility to configure the system for alignment with business needs (of course without compromising on the basic thread of process controls).
I sincerely feel that when it comes to managing a multi business, multi geography system, SAP is definitely an asset and a great enabler. The usage percentage may differ from organisation to organisation – but not because SAP is not useful, but largely on the organisational appetite for having a centralised ERP with the varied degree of checks and controls desired. At JKCL, conservatively speaking, SAP is the pivot of every function’s data capturing and reporting, and is being used to its optimum.
In your case how SAP is used for sales and manufacturing function? Please explain.
We’ve been optimally using SAP for both sales and manufacturing operations by configuring the modules available for the purpose. In fact, we’ve configured SAP SD module not only to capture sales data (SO, Invoices, etc.), but to an extent that the transactional data being captured passes through multiple validations, bringing in stricter controls which help us maximise the potential from each transaction. In manufacturing, PP, QM, PM modules (over and above MM module for inventory management) enable us in bringing up the cost controls, effective plant maintenance, digital quality certificates generation, etc.
The retention module is automated and provides desired visibility to the leadership team in planning on day-to-day basis. BPC tool uses the sales and manufacturing data in planning process, providing a near exact precision in MRP, sales, costing data points.
Talking about logistics, cement industry incurs relatively higher cost to the tune of 25 to 30 per cent on logistics. Huge number of trucks waiting outside the plant is a common scene. At JKCL, we hear that you have brought down logistic cost considerably using digital technologies? Kindly provide information.
Logistics is a key component in cement Industry and requires a much deeper insight and validations, compared to few other industries. The vehicles waiting outside the plant in yard, is through an organised sequence based controlled yard management and is never chaotic at JKCL. With a complete visibility on every vehicle from yard-in to yard out and en-route, we have been able to effectively manage the logistics at all plants.
We were able to bring down the logistics cost considerably through automation at various levels. Some of them are. :
- RFID based in-plant tracking system – reduction in TAT
- GPS based track and trace of vehicles – visibility on Route, short trips, diversion, etc.
- Online bidding among transporters. – reduction in freight
- E-proof of delivery (ePOD) – visibility to customers and faster resolution of billing related transactions for transporters
- Linear programming based best route selection for a faster delivery, reduced freight and timeline
Please explain to our readers the use of IoT and drones in the coming years. What has been the status at your own plants?
We’ve used drone based survey of mines and stock to bring in efficiency in the system, and intend to institutionalise it in future. IoT can play a big role in organisation wise integration of various equipment and machinery, wherein the conversion from manual intervention based tweaking to an automated plant controls – will bring in harmonised production and a proactive plant management.
For IoT, we are in process of strengthening our plant operations through :
- Cordoning the operational technology (OT) with strong security controls
- Use of IoT for efficient remote monitoring and control
- Integrating IT and OT for an overall view to the leadership team
- Use of AR+VR for remote maintenance and support
How IT can be used in training and development of manpower in cement industry?
JKCL as an organisation has always believed in a trained, skilled and awareness based manpower enablement, wherein there are number of institutions from JKCL engaged in providing training individuals in multiple domains. We use IT enabled tools to impart trainings to our manpower in both technical as well as behavioural aspects.
The best example is utilising the learning and development tools during the lockdown period, wherein more than 50 new modules were uploaded on our online Learning Management System (LMS), along with having a collaboration and integration with external agencies in hosting their standard courses online through our system. The efforts are to create standard training modules for our workers through our experienced faculty from ITI. Some of these courses are already available on channels like YouTube, etc.
AS a CIO, your role in the organisation got more pronounced during lockdown period, what was the response of your team during this period to the organisation at large? Give few typical examples.
Fortunately for us, the leadership team is completely aligned to the thought of Digital JKCL, especially Raghavpat Singhania and Madhavkrishna Singhania, who always encourage us to rollout tools and technologies which are futuristic in nature and bring in value to the organisation through automation.
In the past three years, we have rolled out multiple projects that are yielding benefits in respective functions. Because of the migration to latest technologies including Cloud, SaaS, IoT, SDWAN, etc. and Infrastructure level and Applications like CRM, DNA, CTS, IHB, etc. we were more or less prepared for the online mode of working at all levels.
The timely migration to Microsoft Cloud platform about 18 months back, made the collaboration and communication easy for everyone in the company. We have had more than 1,000 online technical meetings across officials, customers and suppliers during the lockdown period. My team has been working round the clock to ensure a seamless working environment for all individuals in the organisation and has been able to provide the required support in time and in an effective manner. We enabled e-visit (sales force visit through online tools), e-joining (new joiners completing formalities online), e-provisioning (enabling BYOD, access to required tool/technology online), etc. during the lockdown period. The paperless movement across the organisation (including Robotic Process Automation), is an opportunity to mitigate the risk of contact based spreading during Covid-19.
Work from home (WfH) model has limitations in the manufacturing sector. Still given a situation we are facing today due to Covid-19 outbreak, what kind of scene will emerge post Covid-19 (for WfH) in the manufacturing sector?
This is correct that WfH model is essentially applicable to the office workers (especially in India), but this is also an opportunity to identify the areas where we can introduce robotics and process automation to reduce dependency on physical presence.
Robotics and remote management in manufacturing is an area where we can proceed with and ensure that the operations are not impacted in situations like the present one (Covid-19). The combination of AR and VR, Drones, IoT, etc. are a necessity today, and needs implementation faster.
Smarter organisations have already realised the need for latest technologies in both Office as well as Manufacturing environment and are embracing it faster than ever.
For the last four years, Jitendra Singh has been working as CIO at JK Cement. He has completed his studies from XLRI, Jamshedpur. He has held leadership positions at Nagarjuna Chemicals & Fertilisers and at HIL, a CK Birla Group company.
BLURB
IoT can play a big role in organisation wise integration of various equipment and machinery.
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Economy & Market
TSR Will Define Which Cement Companies Win India’s Net-Zero Race
Published
2 months agoon
April 27, 2026By
admin
Jignesh Kundaria, Director and CEO, Fornnax Technology
India is simultaneously grappling with two crises: a mounting waste emergency and an urgent need to decarbonise its most carbon-intensive industries. The cement sector, the second-largest in the world and the backbone of the nation’s infrastructure ambitions, sits at the centre of both. It consumes enormous quantities of fossil fuel, and it has the technical capacity to consume something else entirely: the waste our cities cannot get rid of.
According to CPCB and NITI Aayog projections, India generates approximately 62.4 million tonnes of municipal solid waste annually, with that figure expected to reach 165 million tonnes by 2030. Much of this waste is energy-rich and non-recyclable. At the same time, cement kilns operate at material temperatures of approximately 1,450 degrees Celsius, with gas temperatures reaching 2,000 degrees. This high-temperature environment is ideal for co-processing, ensuring the complete thermal destruction of organic compounds without generating toxic residues. The physics are in our favour. The infrastructure is not.
Pre-processing is not the support act for co-processing. It is the main event. Get the particle size wrong, get the moisture wrong, get the calorific value wrong and your kiln thermal stability will suffer the consequences.
The Regulatory Push Is Real
The Solid Waste Management (SWM) Rules 2026 mandate that cement plants progressively replace solid fossil fuels with Refuse-Derived Fuel (RDF), starting at a 5 per cent baseline and scaling to 15 per cent within six years. NITI Aayog’s 2026 Roadmap for Cement Sector Decarbonisation targets 20 to 25 per cent Thermal Substitution Rate (TSR) by 2030. Beyond compliance, every tonne of coal replaced by RDF generates measurable carbon reductions which is monetisable under India’s emerging Carbon Credit Trading Scheme (CCTS). TSR is no longer a sustainability metric. It is a financial lever.
Yet our own field assessments across multiple Indian cement plants reveal a sobering reality: the primary barrier to scaling AFR adoption is not waste availability. It is the fragmented and under-engineered pre-processing ecosystem that sits between the waste and the kiln.
Why Indian Waste Is a Different Engineering Problem
Indian municipal solid waste is not the material that imported shredding equipment was designed for. Our waste streams frequently exceed 40 per cent to 50 per cent moisture content, particularly during monsoon cycles, saturated with abrasive inerts including sand, glass, and stone. Plants relying on imported OEM equipment face months of downtime awaiting proprietary spare parts. Machines built for segregated, low-moisture waste fail quickly and disrupt the entire pre-processing operation in Indian conditions.
The two most common failures we observe are what I call the biting teeth problem and the chewing teeth problem. Plants relying solely on a primary shredder reduce bulk waste to large fractions, but the output remains too coarse for stable kiln combustion. Others attempt to use a secondary shredder as a standalone unit without a primary stage to pre-size the feed, leading to catastrophic mechanical failure. When both stages are present but mismatched in throughput capacity, the system becomes a bottleneck. Achieving the 40 to 70 tonnes per hour required for meaningful coal displacement demands a precisely coordinated two-stage process.
Engineering a Made-in-India Answer
At Fornnax, our response to these challenges is grounded in one principle: Indian waste demands Indian engineering. Our systems are built around feedstock homogeneity, the holy grail of kiln stability. Consistent particle size and predictable calorific value are the foundation of stable kiln combustion. Without them, no TSR target is achievable at scale.
Our SR-MAX2500 Dual Shaft Primary Shredder (Hydraulic Drive) processes raw, baled, or loosely mixed MSW, C&I waste, bulky waste, and plastics, reducing them to approximately 150 mm fractions at throughputs of up to 40 tonnes per hour. The R-MAX 3300 Single Shaft Secondary Shredder (Hydraulic Drive), introduced in 2025, takes that primary output and produces RDF fractions in the 30 to 80 mm range at up to 30 tonnes per hour, specifically optimised for consistent kiln feeding. We have also introduced electric drive configurations under the SR-100 HD series, with capacities between 5 and 40 tonnes per hour, already operational at a leading Indian waste-processing facility.
Looking ahead, Fornnax is expanding its portfolio with the upcoming SR-MAX3600 Hydraulic Drive primary shredder at up to 70 tonnes per hour and the R-MAX2100 Hydraulic drive secondary shredder at up to 20 tonnes per hour, designed specifically for the large-scale throughput that higher TSR ambitions require.
The Investment Case Is Now
The 2070 Net-Zero target is not a distant goal for India’s cement sector. It starts today, with decisions being made on the plant floor.
The SWM Rules 2026 are already in effect, requiring cement plants to replace coal with RDF. Carbon credit markets are opening up, and coal prices are not going to get cheaper. Every tonne of coal a cement plant replaces with waste-derived fuel saves money on one side and generates carbon credit revenue on the other. Pre-processing infrastructure is no longer just a compliance requirement. It is a business investment with a measurable return.
The good news is that nothing is missing. The technology works. The waste is available in every Indian city. The government has provided the policy direction. The only thing standing between where the industry is today and where it needs to be is the commitment to build the right infrastructure.
The cement companies that move now will not just meet the regulations. They will be ahead of every competitor that waits.
About The Author

Jignesh Kundaria is the Director and CEO of Fornnax Technology. Over an experience spanning more than two decades in the recycling industry, he has established himself as one of India’s foremost voices on waste-to-fuel technology and alternative fuel infrastructure.
Concrete
Reimagining Logistics: Spatial AI and Digital Twins
Published
3 months agoon
April 13, 2026By
admin
Digital twins and spatial AI are transforming cement logistics by enabling real-time visibility, predictive decision-making, and smarter multi-modal operations across the supply chain. Dijam Panigrahi highlights how immersive AR/VR training is bridging workforce skill gaps, helping companies build faster, more efficient, and future-ready logistics systems.
As India accelerates infrastructure investment under flagship programs such as PM GatiShakti and the National Infrastructure Pipeline, the pressure on cement manufacturers to deliver reliably, efficiently, and cost-effectively has never been greater. Yet for all the modernisation that has taken place on the production side, the end-to-end logistics chain, from clinker dispatch to the last-mile delivery of bagged cement to construction sites, remains a domain riddled with inefficiencies, opacity and manual decision-making.
The good news is that a new generation of spatial computing technologies is now mature enough to transform this reality. Digital twins, spatial artificial intelligence (AI) and immersive augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) training platforms are converging to offer cement producers something they have long sought: real-time visibility, autonomous decision-making at the operational edge, and a scalable solution to the persistent skills gap that hampers workforce performance.
Advancing logistics with digital twins
The cement supply chain is uniquely complex. A single integrated plant may manage limestone quarrying, kiln operations, grinding, packing and despatch simultaneously, with finished product flowing through rail, road, and waterway networks to reach hundreds of regional depots and distribution points. Coordinating this network using spreadsheets, siloed ERP data, and phone calls is not merely inefficient; it is a structural liability in a competitive market where delivery reliability is a key differentiator.
Digital twin technology offers a way out. A cement logistics digital twin is a continuously updated, three-dimensional virtual replica of the entire supply chain, from the truck loading bays at the plant to the inventory levels at district depots. By ingesting data from IoT sensors on conveyor belts and packing machines, GPS trackers on road and rail fleets, weighbridge records, and weather feeds, the digital twin provides planners with a single, authoritative picture of where every ton of cement is, in real time.
The value, however, goes well beyond visibility. Because the digital twin mirrors the physical system in dynamic detail, it can run scenario simulations before decisions are executed. If a primary rail corridor is disrupted, logistics managers can model alternative routing options, shifting volumes to road or coastal shipping, and assess the cost and time implications within minutes rather than days. If a packing line at the plant is running below capacity, the twin can automatically recalculate dispatch schedules downstream and alert depot managers to adjust receiving resources accordingly.
For cement companies operating multi-plant networks across geographies as varied as Rajasthan and the North-East, this kind of end-to-end situational awareness is transformative. It collapses information latency from hours to seconds, enables proactive rather than reactive logistics management, and creates the data foundation upon which AI-driven decision-making can be built. Companies that have deployed logistics digital twins in comparable heavy-industry contexts have reported reductions in transit time variability of up to 20 per cent and meaningful decreases in demurrage and detention costs, savings that flow directly to the bottom line.
Smart logistics operations
A digital twin is only as powerful as the intelligence layer that sits on top of it. This is where Spatial AI becomes the critical differentiator for cement logistics.
Traditional logistics management systems are reactive. They record what has happened and flag exceptions after the fact. Spatial AI systems, by contrast, are proactive. They continuously analyse the state of the logistics network as represented in the digital twin, identify emerging bottlenecks before they crystallise into delays, and recommend corrective actions.
At the plant gate, AI-powered visual inspection systems using spatial depth-sensing cameras can assess truck conditions, verify load integrity and confirm seal tamper status in seconds, replacing the manual checks that currently slow throughput. At the depot level, Spatial AI can monitor stock drawdown rates in real time, cross-reference them against pending customer orders and inbound shipment ETAs, and automatically trigger replenishment orders when safety thresholds are approached. In transit, AI systems processing GPS and telematics data can detect anomalous vehicle behaviour, including extended stops, route deviations, speed irregularities and alert fleet managers instantly.
Perhaps most significantly for Indian cement logistics, Spatial AI can optimise the complex multi-modal routing decisions that are central to competitive cost management. Given the variability in road quality, seasonal accessibility, rail rake availability, and regional demand patterns across India’s vast geography, the combinatorial complexity of routing optimisation is beyond human planners working with conventional tools. AI systems can process this complexity continuously and adapt routing recommendations as conditions change, reducing empty running, improving vehicle utilisation and cutting fuel costs.
The agentic dimension of modern AI is particularly relevant here. Agentic AI systems do not merely analyse and recommend; they act. In a cement logistics context, this means an AI system that can, within pre-authorised boundaries, directly communicate revised dispatch instructions to plant teams, update booking confirmations with freight forwarders and reallocate available rail rakes across plant locations, all without waiting for a human to process a recommendation and make a call. For logistics executives, this represents a genuine shift from managing a workforce to setting the rules of engagement and reviewing outcomes. The operational tempo achievable with agentic AI simply cannot be matched by human-in-the-loop systems working at the pace of emails and phone calls.
Bridging the skills gap
Technology investments in digital twins and spatial AI will deliver diminishing returns if the human workforce cannot operate effectively within the new systems they create. This is a challenge that India’s cement industry cannot afford to underestimate. The sector relies on a large, geographically dispersed workforce, including truck drivers, depot managers, despatch supervisors, fleet maintenance technicians, many of whom have been trained on paper-based processes and manual workflows. Retraining this workforce for a digitised, AI-augmented environment is a substantial undertaking, and conventional classroom or on-the-job training methods are poorly suited to the scale and pace required.
Immersive AR and VR training platforms offer a fundamentally different approach. By creating photorealistic, interactive simulations of logistics environments, such as a plant dispatch bay, a depot yard, the interior of a cement truck cab, allow workers to practice complex procedures and decision-making scenarios in a safe, consequence-free virtual environment. A depot manager can work through a simulated rail rake delay scenario, making decisions about customer allocation and communication
without the pressure of real orders being affected. A truck driver can practice the correct procedure for securing a load of bagged cement without the risk of a road incident.
The learning science case for immersive training is compelling. Studies consistently show that experiential, simulation-based learning produces faster skill acquisition and higher retention rates than didactic instruction, with some research indicating retention rates three to four times higher for VR-based training compared to classroom methods. For complex operational procedures where muscle memory and situational awareness matter as much as conceptual knowledge, the advantage of immersive simulation is even more pronounced.
Today’s leading cloud-based spatial computing platforms enable high-fidelity AR and VR training experiences to be delivered on standard mobile devices, removing the hardware barrier that has historically made immersive training impractical for large, distributed workforces. This is particularly relevant for cement companies with depots and logistics operations in tier-two and tier-three locations, where access to specialised training hardware cannot be assumed.
The integration of AR into live operations also creates ongoing learning opportunities beyond formal training programs. As an example, maintenance technicians equipped with AR overlays can receive step-by-step guidance for equipment procedures directly in their field of view, reducing error rates and service times for critical plant and fleet assets.
New strategy, new horizons
India’s cement industry is entering a period of intensifying competition, rising logistics costs, and demanding customers with shrinking tolerance for delivery variability. The companies that will lead over the next decade will be those that treat logistics not as a cost centre to be minimised, but as a strategic capability to be built.
Digital twins, spatial AI and immersive AR/VR training are not distant future technologies, they are deployable today on infrastructure that Indian cement companies already operate. The question is not whether to adopt them, but how quickly to do so and where to begin.
About the author:
Dijam Panigrahi is Co-Founder and COO of GridRaster Inc., a provider of cloud-based spatial computing platforms that power high-quality digital twin and immersive AR/VR experiences on mobile devices for enterprises. GridRaster’s technology is deployed across manufacturing, logistics and infrastructure sectors globally.
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