Concrete

Ready Mix Concrete: A Better Choice

Published

4 years ago

August 10, 2022

admin

Its multiple benefits and cost effectiveness has given Ready Mix Concrete a preferred choice status in the construction industry. ICR attempts to understand its manufacturing processes and distinct features to evaluate its long-lasting impact on the industry.

The construction industry uses two main types of concrete – the ready mix concrete and site mixed concrete. They both have specific applications, functions, advantages and is advantages.
The ready mix concrete (RMC) is usually made in a factory or a batching plant and is delivered in an unhardened and plastic state, ready to use, to the construction site. It is the most preferred mix of concrete for large projects that require a high volume or when less space is available for storing and mixing the construction materials. It is also often preferred over on-site concrete mixes because the ready mix variety can be mixed using specialised equipment to get just the right mixture. It is like using a set recipe and delivering it to the site by trucks with in-transit mixers.
The story of the genesis of ready mix concrete – when it was first delivered or first made – is disputed. Some sources say that concrete was delivered by a horse-drawn mixer that used paddles turned by the cart›s wheels to mix concrete en route to the jobsite in 1909, while others suggest it was first made in 1913 in Baltimore and by 1929 there were over 100 plants operating in the United States. In 1916, Stephen Stepanian of Columbus, Ohio, developed a self-discharging motorised transit mixer that was the predecessor of the modern ready-mixed concrete truck. Development of improved ready-mixed trucks was hindered by the poor quality of motor trucks in the 1920s. During the 1940s, the availability of heavier trucks and better engines allowed mixing drum capacities to increase, which in turn allowed ready-mixed concrete producers to meet the high demand for concrete caused by World War II.
The Chemical Makeup
Cement is the core component of any ready mix concrete. It is then combined with water and other aggregates to make a ready to use mixture at construction sites. Water sets off a chemical reaction when it comes in contact with the cement. Aggregates, such as sand, gravel and crushed stones that are obtained from quarries or other sources, add 60 to 70 per cent volume to this mixture. Some solid or liquid additives, like retarders, are also introduced to ready mix concrete before or during preparation to increase its durability and shorten its setting time, giving allowance to the transportation and placing the time of the concrete.
Each component of the ready mix concrete is manufactured separately. The proportions in which it is mixed are dictated by the requirement of its properties or the job that it is going to be used at. These components of the RMC are brought together in a rotating container, also known as the cement mixer and water is added to it. The proportions and measurements are carefully considered along with the time it will take to mix and travel to its destination. Once water hits the mixture, the cement mixer doesn’t stop rotating, even during the travel and rotates at approximately the speed of two to six rotations per minute.

Variety and Uses
There are mainly three types of ready mix concrete that are developed: Transit Mixed Concrete, Shrink Mixed Concrete and Central Mixed Concrete.
The Transit Mixed Concrete, also known as truck mixed concrete, has its materials batched at a central plant and are completely mixed in the truck in transit. Frequently, the concrete is partially mixed in transit and mixing is completed at the jobsite. Transit-mixing keeps the water separate from the cement and aggregates and allows the concrete to be mixed immediately before placement at the construction site. It is the most common type of ready-mix concrete used by building construction providers.
In Shrink Mixed Concrete, concrete is partially mixed at the plant to reduce or shrink the volume of the mixture and mixing is completed in transit or at the jobsite. The ingredients are added to the batching plants, and the required adjustments are made according to the strength requirements of the concrete. The ready-made concrete is then shifted through concrete pumps for transportation. The main purpose of this concrete is to increase the load capacity of the transporting vehicle. The balance mixing of the concrete is done during the transit time.
In this technique of the central mixed concrete, a stationary mixing unit is set and the concrete is mixed. It is followed by quality tests and is allowed to transport only after the tests are done and quality standards are met. It is also known as wet batch plants. However, the process is time-consuming and not always recommended.

RMC – Getting an Upper Hand
There are multiple advantages and disadvantages associated with the use of ready mix concrete.
The biggest advantage of using the same is the control on quality and ease of operations. RMC is mixed under quality controlled batch units, thus, the result and strength is assured and as per requirement. Another advantage is that it comes in a mobile mixture, so there is no need to store it at the construction site, thus reducing the handling and storing cost of the same. As the name suggests, ready mix concrete is a ready material to be used at construction sites and therefore, it accounts for reduced time of construction and accounts for no delays in completion of projects.
The quantities in ready mix concrete can be controlled and only that much can be ordered as much is required, which leads to reduced or no wastage. This is economically beneficial to the constructor as well as makes the same an environmentally friendly option.
Anil Bacchore, Managing Director, RDC, says, “Use of ready mix concrete at a construction site is cost efficient and has several advantages, making it a more viable and efficient alternative to site-mix concrete. It circumvents the messy and long-drawn task of producing the concrete on site. The consumption of required materials for making the concrete reduces by nearly 10 per cent to 12 per cent with better handling practices and proper mixing. RMC helps save on capital investments by not having to invest in plants and machinery for cement. The need to create storage facilities at the site of construction also reduces with ready mix concrete.”
“Faster pouring of concrete leads to less requirement of construction labours and makes the construction activity faster. Thus, RMC provides an alternative that reduces wastage of resources during the construction process. Furthermore, the responsibility of producing fresh concrete, its transportation, pumping and laying of concrete on the site lies with the RMC Players and their goal is to provide materials of the best quality with timely delivery, regardless of the size of the order,” he adds.

Precautionary measures
Some of the notable disadvantages of using ready mix concrete is that it requires an initial investment by the constructing party to order the required quantity of mix. Since the material is time sensitive, the readiness of the workforce becomes very important and labour at site must be ready to bring the material to use within its setting time.
The transport requirement of the same is also very specific. Special transport vehicles are required to bring ready mix concrete from batching plants to the site, which is again a monetary investment, and since the concrete is made ready to use at the plant, it becomes time sensitive to reach the site. Ready mix concrete must reach the site within 210 minutes from the batching plant. Any unforeseen delays or vehicle breakdowns can result in the onset of its setting and thus, resulting in wasted material and resources.

Fresh concrete has many applications and can be cast into circles, rectangles, squares and more. It can also be used for staircases, columns, doors, beams, lentils and other familiar structures. Concrete is made in different grades, including normal, standard and high-strength grades. These grades indicate how strong the concrete is and how it will be used in construction.
Raj Kamal Yadav, General Manager – Operations Strategy, Lodha Group, says, “The most widely used ready mix concrete in the industry is M30 and many of the experts shall agree to the same. M30 has proven to be a good design mix for low rise residential buildings and structures where the beams are of shorter span. M30 has also a wider usage in vertical members of a RCC structure. The choice of mix, however, changes depending upon the load on buildings. When we look at high-rise buildings, ready mix concrete grades like M40 and M50 are used in vertical and in many cases horizontal members as well. However, M30 becomes an obvious choice for structural members especially horizontal ones at higher levels of the building as loads on structure come down”.
“The choice of mix highly depends on the load (dead load or live load or wind load or earthquake), where the mix being used (foundation or columns or beams or slabs), methodology of construction and type of structure (framed or modular or precast or prestressed), other category of structure (bridge, dam, residential building, road, rail etc.) exposure of structure (windy, high moisture, marine), type of reinforcement and various other conditions. Having said that, M30 has a wide usage” he adds.

Manufactured Sand (M Sand)
Concrete is made with cement, water and aggregates. One of the most important aggregates is sand. However, owing to the shortage of naturally available sand, manufactured sand or M Sand is becoming a sustainable alternative for construction purposes as an aggregate for concrete.
Manufactured sand (M Sand) is artificial sand produced from crushing hard stones into small sand-sized angular shaped particles, washed and finely graded to be used as construction aggregate. An alternative to the naturally occurring river sand that is used in construction, manufactured sand is produced from crushing rocks, quarry stones, hard granite or larger aggregated pieces into sand-sized particles.
Sand is the world’s second most consumed natural resource after water. As urbanisation and infrastructure is rapidly growing, the demand for sand is also growing. This increasing need for sand as an aggregate for construction material is leading to an eventual exhaustion of natural sand resources. This also raises environmental concerns and thus, manufactured sand has emerged as a suitable and sustainable alternative to fine aggregate for the concrete mix.
The manufacturing process of M Sand involves crushing of stones or rocks of various sizes into aggregates using vertical shaft impact (VSI) crushers. This material is then fed into a Rotopactor for crushing the aggregates into sand to the desired grain size. This sand is then screened and further refined by removing fine particles and impurities through sieving
and washing.

Manufacturing Process
The production of manufactured sand is driven by the following factors advantages:

Scarcity of natural sand is one of the key driving factors of manufactured sand production. Continuous mining of sand from river beds has led to its depletion and the need to have an alternative resource has become prominent.
The aggregate particle size can be determined when the sand is artificially manufactured. Concrete creates its bulk with sand and other aggregates. They also determine certain properties which can be managed with manufactured sand.
Natural sand pits that are licensed with the desired quality of sand may be located away from the site, which implies the cost of transport, various permissions and taxes. While manufactured sand solves this problem and becomes a cost effective solution, thus, the demand.
Manufactured sand is a man-made aggregate that can be ordered as per required quantity. It is a processed material, free of impurities that allows concrete makers to reduce wastage as compared to that of natural sand.
The use of manufactured sand in concrete making makes the batching process more efficient and productive as it is a quality controlled material, free of impurities.

While there are many advantages and drivers of manufactured sand, there are some disadvantages, too:

M Sand is a coarser material and more angular than natural sand. Grains of natural sand are fine, almost spherical, that make it smooth due to natural gradation. The angular particles of M sand may lead to a higher water requirement to achieve its workability, which may add to some costs.
At times, M Sand can contain larger amounts of micro fine particles as compared to that of natural sand. This also impacts the workability and strength of concrete.
Manufactured sand is used for concreting,
plastering and for brick or blockwork. It comes with its advantages and disadvantages but it has been proved to have economical and eco-friendly benefits for the concrete makers and construction activities. Ready mix concrete is a vital material in construction activities and is the preferred choice in the industry for multiple benefits and cost effectiveness it offers.

–Kanika Mathur

Up Next

Philosophy of High Strength Cement/Concrete

Don't Miss

Only cement has the ability to enhance the viscosity of concrete

Concrete

Refractory demands in our kiln have changed

Published

3 days ago

February 20, 2026

admin

Radha Singh, Senior Manager (P&Q), Shree Digvijay Cement, points out why performance, predictability and life-cycle value now matter more than routine replacement in cement kilns.

As Indian cement plants push for higher throughput, increased alternative fuel usage and tighter shutdown cycles, refractory performance in kilns and pyro-processing systems is under growing pressure. In this interview, Radha Singh, Senior Manager (P&Q), Shree Digvijay Cement, shares how refractory demands have evolved on the ground and how smarter digital monitoring is improving kiln stability, uptime and clinker quality.

How have refractory demands changed in your kiln and pyro-processing line over the last five years?
Over the last five years, refractory demands in our kiln and pyro line have changed. Earlier, the focus was mostly on standard grades and routine shutdown-based replacement. But now, because of higher production loads, more alternative fuels and raw materials (AFR) usage and greater temperature variation, the expectation from refractory has increased.
In our own case, the current kiln refractory has already completed around 1.5 years, which itself shows how much more we now rely on materials that can handle thermal shock, alkali attack and coating fluctuations. We have moved towards more stable, high-performance linings so that we don’t have to enter the kiln frequently for repairs.
Overall, the shift has been from just ‘installation and run’ to selecting refractories that give longer life, better coating behaviour and more predictable performance under tougher operating conditions.

What are the biggest refractory challenges in the preheater, calciner and cooler zones?
• Preheater: Coating instability, chloride/sulphur cycles and brick erosion.
• Calciner: AFR firing, thermal shock and alkali infiltration.
• Cooler: Severe abrasion, red-river formation and mechanical stress on linings.
Overall, the biggest challenge is maintaining lining stability under highly variable operating conditions.

How do you evaluate and select refractory partners for long-term performance?
In real plant conditions, we don’t select a refractory partner just by looking at price. First, we see their past performance in similar kilns and whether their material has actually survived our operating conditions. We also check how strong their technical support is during shutdowns, because installation quality matters as much as the material itself.
Another key point is how quickly they respond during breakdowns or hot spots. A good partner should be available on short notice. We also look at their failure analysis capability, whether they can explain why a lining failed and suggest improvements.
On top of this, we review the life they delivered in the last few campaigns, their supply reliability and their willingness to offer plant-specific custom solutions instead of generic grades. Only a partner who supports us throughout the life cycle, which includes selection, installation, monitoring and post-failure analysis, fits our long-term requirement.

Can you share a recent example where better refractory selection improved uptime or clinker quality?
Recently, we upgraded to a high-abrasion basic brick at the kiln outlet. Earlier we had frequent chipping and coating loss. With the new lining, thermal stability improved and the coating became much more stable. As a result, our shutdown interval increased and clinker quality remained more consistent. It had a direct impact on our uptime.

How is increased AFR use affecting refractory behaviour?
Increased AFR use is definitely putting more stress on the refractory. The biggest issue we see daily is the rise in chlorine, alkalis and volatiles, which directly attack the lining, especially in the calciner and kiln inlet. AFR firing is also not as stable as conventional fuel, so we face frequent temperature fluctuations, which cause more thermal shock and small cracks in the lining.
Another real problem is coating instability. Some days the coating builds too fast, other days it suddenly drops, and both conditions impact refractory life. We also notice more dust circulation and buildup inside the calciner whenever the AFR mix changes, which again increases erosion.
Because of these practical issues, we have started relying more on alkali-resistant, low-porosity and better thermal shock–resistant materials to handle the additional stress coming from AFR.

What role does digital monitoring or thermal profiling play in your refractory strategy?
Digital tools like kiln shell scanners, IR imaging and thermal profiling help us detect weakening areas much earlier. This reduces unplanned shutdowns, helps identify hotspots accurately and allows us to replace only the critical sections. Overall, our maintenance has shifted from reactive to predictive, improving lining life significantly.

How do you balance cost, durability and installation speed during refractory shutdowns?
We focus on three points:
• Material quality that suits our thermal profile and chemistry.
• Installation speed, in fast turnarounds, we prefer monolithic.
• Life-cycle cost—the cheapest material is not the most economical. We look at durability, future downtime and total cost of ownership.
This balance ensures reliable performance without unnecessary expenditure.

What refractory or pyro-processing innovations could transform Indian cement operations?
Some promising developments include:
• High-performance, low-porosity and nano-bonded refractories
• Precast modular linings to drastically reduce shutdown time
• AI-driven kiln thermal analytics
• Advanced coating management solutions
• More AFR-compatible refractory mixes

These innovations can significantly improve kiln stability, efficiency and maintenance planning across the industry.

Concrete

Digital supply chain visibility is critical

Published

3 days ago

February 20, 2026

admin

MSR Kali Prasad, Chief Digital and Information Officer, Shree Cement, discusses how data, discipline and scale are turning Industry 4.0 into everyday business reality.

Over the past five years, digitalisation in Indian cement manufacturing has moved decisively beyond experimentation. Today, it is a strategic lever for cost control, operational resilience and sustainability. In this interview, MSR Kali Prasad, Chief Digital and Information Officer, Shree Cement, explains how integrated digital foundations, advanced analytics and real-time visibility are helping deliver measurable business outcomes.

How has digitalisation moved from pilot projects to core strategy in Indian cement manufacturing over the past five years?
Digitalisation in Indian cement has evolved from isolated pilot initiatives into a core business strategy because outcomes are now measurable, repeatable and scalable. The key shift has been the move away from standalone solutions toward an integrated digital foundation built on standardised processes, governed data and enterprise platforms that can be deployed consistently across plants and functions.
At Shree Cement, this transition has been very pragmatic. The early phase focused on visibility through dashboards, reporting, and digitisation of critical workflows. Over time, this has progressed into enterprise-level analytics and decision support across manufacturing and the supply chain,
with clear outcomes in cost optimisation, margin protection and revenue improvement through enhanced customer experience.
Equally important, digital is no longer the responsibility of a single function. It is embedded into day-to-day operations across planning, production, maintenance, despatch and customer servicing, supported by enterprise systems, Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) data platforms, and a structured approach to change management.

Which digital interventions are delivering the highest ROI across mining, production and logistics today?
In a capital- and cost-intensive sector like cement, the highest returns come from digital interventions that directly reduce unit costs or unlock latent capacity without significant capex.
Supply chain and planning (advanced analytics): Tools for demand forecasting, S&OP, network optimisation and scheduling deliver strong returns by lowering logistics costs, improving service levels, and aligning production with demand in a fragmented and regionally diverse market.
Mining (fleet and productivity analytics): Data-led mine planning, fleet analytics, despatch discipline, and idle-time reduction improve fuel efficiency and equipment utilisation, generating meaningful savings in a cost-heavy operation.
Manufacturing (APC and process analytics): Advanced Process Control, mill optimisation, and variability reduction improve thermal and electrical efficiency, stabilise quality and reduce rework and unplanned stoppages.
Customer experience and revenue enablement (digital platforms): Dealer and retailer apps, order visibility and digitally enabled technical services improve ease of doing business and responsiveness. We are also empowering channel partners with transparent, real-time information on schemes, including eligibility, utilisation status and actionable recommendations, which improves channel satisfaction and market execution while supporting revenue growth.
Overall, while Artificial Intelligence (AI) and IIoT are powerful enablers, it is advanced analytics anchored in strong processes that typically delivers the fastest and most reliable ROI.

How is real-time data helping plants shift from reactive maintenance to predictive and prescriptive operations?
Real-time and near real-time data is driving a more proactive and disciplined maintenance culture, beginning with visibility and progressively moving toward prediction and prescription.
At Shree Cement, we have implemented a robust SAP Plant Maintenance framework to standardise maintenance workflows. This is complemented by IIoT-driven condition monitoring, ensuring consistent capture of equipment health indicators such as vibration, temperature, load, operating patterns and alarms.
Real-time visibility enables early detection of abnormal conditions, allowing teams to intervene before failures occur. As data quality improves and failure histories become structured, predictive models can anticipate likely failure modes and recommend timely interventions, improving MTBF and reducing downtime. Over time, these insights will evolve into prescriptive actions, including spares readiness, maintenance scheduling, and operating parameter adjustments, enabling reliability optimisation with minimal disruption.
A critical success factor is adoption. Predictive insights deliver value only when they are embedded into daily workflows, roles and accountability structures. Without this, they remain insights without action.

In a cost-sensitive market like India, how do cement companies balance digital investment with price competitiveness?
In India’s intensely competitive cement market, digital investments must be tightly linked to tangible business outcomes, particularly cost reduction, service improvement, and faster decision-making.
This balance is achieved by prioritising high-impact use cases such as planning efficiency, logistics optimisation, asset reliability, and process stability, all of which typically deliver quick payback. Equally important is building scalable and governed digital foundations that reduce the marginal cost of rolling out new use cases across plants.
Digitally enabled order management, live despatch visibility, and channel partner platforms also improve customer centricity while controlling cost-to-serve, allowing service levels to improve without proportionate increases in headcount or overheads.
In essence, the most effective digital investments do not add cost. They protect margins by reducing variability, improving planning accuracy, and strengthening execution discipline.

How is digitalisation enabling measurable reductions in energy consumption, emissions, and overall carbon footprint?
Digitalisation plays a pivotal role in improving energy efficiency, reducing emissions and lowering overall carbon intensity.
Real-time monitoring and analytics enable near real-time tracking of energy consumption and critical operating parameters, allowing inefficiencies to be identified quickly and corrective actions to be implemented. Centralised data consolidation across plants enables benchmarking, accelerates best-practice adoption, and drives consistent improvements in energy performance.
Improved asset reliability through predictive maintenance reduces unplanned downtime and process instability, directly lowering energy losses. Digital platforms also support more effective planning and control of renewable energy sources and waste heat recovery systems, reducing dependence on fossil fuels.
Most importantly, digitalisation enables sustainability progress to be tracked with greater accuracy and consistency, supporting long-term ESG commitments.

What role does digital supply chain visibility play in managing demand volatility and regional market dynamics in India?
Digital supply chain visibility is critical in India, where demand is highly regional, seasonality is pronounced, and logistics constraints can shift rapidly.
At Shree Cement, planning operates across multiple horizons. Annual planning focuses on capacity, network footprint and medium-term demand. Monthly S&OP aligns demand, production and logistics, while daily scheduling drives execution-level decisions on despatch, sourcing and prioritisation.
As digital maturity increases, this structure is being augmented by central command-and-control capabilities that manage exceptions such as plant constraints, demand spikes, route disruptions and order prioritisation. Planning is also shifting from aggregated averages to granular, cost-to-serve and exception-based decision-making, improving responsiveness, lowering logistics costs and strengthening service reliability.

How prepared is the current workforce for Industry 4.0, and what reskilling strategies are proving most effective?
Workforce preparedness for Industry 4.0 is improving, though the primary challenge lies in scaling capabilities consistently across diverse roles.
The most effective approach is to define capability requirements by role and tailor enablement accordingly. Senior leadership focuses on digital literacy for governance, investment prioritisation, and value tracking. Middle management is enabled to use analytics for execution discipline and adoption. Frontline sales and service teams benefit from
mobile-first tools and KPI-driven workflows, while shop-floor and plant teams focus on data-driven operations, APC usage, maintenance discipline, safety and quality routines.
Personalised, role-based learning paths, supported by on-ground champions and a clear articulation of practical benefits, drive adoption far more effectively than generic training programmes.

Which emerging digital technologies will fundamentally reshape cement manufacturing in the next decade?
AI and GenAI are expected to have the most significant impact, particularly when combined with connected operations and disciplined processes.
Key technologies likely to reshape the sector include GenAI and agentic AI for faster root-cause analysis, knowledge access, and standardisation of best practices; industrial foundation models that learn patterns across large sensor datasets; digital twins that allow simulation of process changes before implementation; and increasingly autonomous control systems that integrate sensors, AI, and APC to maintain stability with minimal manual intervention.
Over time, this will enable more centralised monitoring and management of plant operations, supported by strong processes, training and capability-building.

Concrete

Redefining Efficiency with Digitalisation

Published

3 days ago

February 20, 2026

admin

Professor Procyon Mukherjee discusses how as the cement industry accelerates its shift towards digitalisation, data-driven technologies are becoming the mainstay of sustainability and control across the value chain.

The cement industry, long perceived as traditional and resistant to change, is undergoing a profound transformation driven by digital technologies. As global infrastructure demand grows alongside increasing pressure to decarbonise and improve productivity, cement manufacturers are adopting data-centric tools to enhance performance across the value chain. Nowhere is this shift more impactful than in grinding, which is the energy-intensive final stage of cement production, and in the materials that make grinding more efficient: grinding media and grinding aids.

The imperative for digitalisation
Cement production accounts for roughly 7 per cent to 8 per cent of global CO2 emissions, largely due to the energy intensity of clinker production and grinding processes. Digital solutions, such as AI-driven process controls and digital twins, are helping plants improve stability, cut fuel use and reduce emissions while maintaining consistent product quality. In one deployment alongside ABB’s process controls at a Heidelberg plant in Czechia, AI tools cut fuel use by 4 per cent and emissions by 2 per cent, while also improving operational stability.
Digitalisation in cement manufacturing encompasses a suite of technologies, broadly termed as Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), AI and machine learning, predictive analytics, cloud-based platforms, advanced process control and digital twins, each playing a role in optimising various stages of production from quarrying to despatch.

Grinding: The crucible of efficiency and cost
Of all the stages in cement production, grinding is among the most energy-intensive, historically consuming large amounts of electricity and representing a significant portion of plant operating costs. As a result, optimising grinding operations has become central to digital transformation strategies.
Modern digital systems are transforming grinding mills from mechanical workhorses into intelligent, interconnected assets. Sensors throughout the mill measure parameters such as mill load, vibration, mill speed, particle size distribution, and power consumption. This real-time data, fed into machine learning and advanced process control (APC) systems, can dynamically adjust operating conditions to maintain optimal throughput and energy usage.
For example, advanced grinding systems now predict inefficient conditions, such as impending mill overload, by continuously analysing acoustic and vibration signatures. The system can then proactively adjust clinker feed rates and grinding media distribution to sustain optimal conditions, reducing energy consumption and improving consistency.

Digital twins: Seeing grinding in the virtual world
One of the most transformative digital tools applied in cement grinding is the digital twin, which a real-time virtual replica of physical equipment and processes. By integrating sensor data and
process models, digital twins enable engineers to simulate process variations and run ‘what-if’
scenarios without disrupting actual production. These simulations support decisions on variables such as grinding media charge, mill speed and classifier settings, allowing optimisation of energy use and product fineness.
Digital twins have been used to optimise kilns and grinding circuits in plants worldwide, reducing unplanned downtime and allowing predictive maintenance to extend the life of expensive grinding assets.

Grinding media and grinding aids in a digital era
While digital technologies improve control and prediction, materials science innovations in grinding media and grinding aids have become equally crucial for achieving performance gains.
Grinding media, which comprise the balls or cylinders inside mills, directly influence the efficiency of clinker comminution. Traditionally composed of high-chrome cast iron or forged steel, grinding media account for nearly a quarter of global grinding media consumption by application, with efficiency improvements translating directly to lower energy intensity.
Recent advancements include ceramic and hybrid media that combine hardness and toughness to reduce wear and energy losses. For example, manufacturers such as Sanxin New Materials in China and Tosoh Corporation in Japan have developed sub-nano and zirconia media with exceptional wear resistance. Other innovations include smart media embedded with sensors to monitor wear, temperature, and impact forces in real time, enabling predictive maintenance and optimal media replacement scheduling. These digitally-enabled media solutions can increase grinding efficiency by as much as 15 per cent.
Complementing grinding media are grinding aids, which are chemical additives that improve mill throughput and reduce energy consumption by altering the surface properties of particles, trapping air, and preventing re-agglomeration. Technology leaders like SIKA AG and GCP Applied Technologies have invested in tailored grinding aids compatible with AI-driven dosing platforms that automatically adjust additive concentrations based on real-time mill conditions. Trials in South America reported throughput improvements nearing 19 per cent when integrating such digital assistive dosing with process control systems.
The integration of grinding media data and digital dosing of grinding aids moves the mill closer to a self-optimising system, where AI not only predicts media wear or energy losses but prescribes optimal interventions through automated dosing and operational adjustments.

Global case studies in digital adoption
Several cement companies around the world exemplify digital transformation in practice.
Heidelberg Materials has deployed digital twin technologies across global plants, achieving up to 15 per cent increases in production efficiency and 20 per cent reductions in energy consumption by leveraging real-time analytics and predictive algorithms.
Holcim’s Siggenthal plant in Switzerland piloted AI controllers that autonomously adjusted kiln operations, boosting throughput while reducing specific energy consumption and emissions.
Cemex, through its AI and predictive maintenance initiatives, improved kiln availability and reduced maintenance costs by predicting failures before they occurred. Global efforts also include AI process optimisation initiatives to reduce energy consumption and environmental impact.

Challenges and the road ahead
Despite these advances, digitalisation in cement grinding faces challenges. Legacy equipment may lack sensor readiness, requiring retrofits and edge-cloud connectivity upgrades. Data governance and integration across plants and systems remains a barrier for many mid-tier producers. Yet, digital transformation statistics show momentum: more than half of cement companies have implemented IoT sensors for equipment monitoring, and digital twin adoption is growing rapidly as part of broader Industry 4.0 strategies.
Furthermore, as digital systems mature, they increasingly support sustainability goals: reduced energy use, optimised media consumption and lower greenhouse gas emissions. By embedding intelligence into grinding circuits and material inputs like grinding aids, cement manufacturers can strike a balance between efficiency and environmental stewardship.
Conclusion
Digitalisation is not merely an add-on to cement manufacturing. It is reshaping the competitive and sustainability landscape of an industry often perceived as inertia-bound. With grinding representing a nexus of energy intensity and cost, digital technologies from sensor networks and predictive analytics to digital twins offer new levers of control. When paired with innovations in grinding media and grinding aids, particularly those with embedded digital capabilities, plants can achieve unprecedented gains in efficiency, predictability and performance.
For global cement producers aiming to reduce costs and carbon footprints simultaneously, the future belongs to those who harness digital intelligence not just to monitor operations, but to optimise and evolve them continuously.

About the author:
Professor Procyon Mukherjee, ex-CPO Lafarge-Holcim India, ex-President Hindalco, ex-VP Supply Chain Novelis Europe, has been an industry leader in logistics, procurement, operations and supply chain management. His career spans 38 years starting from Philips, Alcan Inc (Indian Aluminum Company), Hindalco, Novelis and Holcim. He authored the book, ‘The Search for Value in Supply Chains’. He serves now as Visiting Professor in SP Jain Global, SIOM and as the Adjunct Professor at SBUP. He advises leading Global Firms including Consulting firms on SCM and Industrial Leadership and is a subject matter expert in aluminum and cement. An Alumnus of IIM Calcutta and Jadavpur University, he has completed the LH Senior Leadership Programme at IVEY Academy at Western University, Canada.