Tushar Kulkarni, Business Head – Minerals – Cement & Mining, Innomotics India, shares insights on digitalisation technologies that are powering the cement industry’s transition.

From high-performance motor and drive systems to AI-powered optimisation and digital twins, Innomotics is leading a quiet revolution in the cement sector’s electrification and automation landscape. Its deep domain expertise—spanning over three decades—now converges with advanced digitalisation to make plants smarter, more efficient, and more sustainable. In this conversation, Tushar Kulkarni, Business Head – Minerals – Cement & Mining, Innomotics India, discusses how Innomotics’ innovations, including the new High Voltage Compact (HVC) motors, CEMAT automation platform, and AI-driven process solutions, are empowering cement manufacturers to achieve operational excellence and decarbonisation goals simultaneously.

How is Innomotics redefining the ‘motion and drive’ paradigm specifically for the cement industry?
Our products and solutions for the cement industry incorporate more than 35 years of experience and collaboration with the world’s leading cement companies. They are based on proven standards and tailored to the specific demands of your industry. Since many decades, Innomotics prides itself as a technology provider in Electrification and Automation space and continuously supports various cement manufacturers in operating plants in efficient condition – be it energy efficiency, plant uptime and reliable operations.
In today’s Industry 4.0 era, Innomotics with innovative and state-of-the-art digitalisation solutions specific to cement manufacturing, is set to boost our customers’ effort in achieving sustainability goals by enabling them in adapting to fast changing market scenario and maintain their competitive position with continuous improvement in productivity, efficiency and optimum utilisation of resources.

What recent breakthroughs in motor / drive technology are you most excited about?
We have recently launched our High Voltage Compact (HVC) motor portfolio. The high voltage compact IEC motors cover a power range from 150 kW to 2.7 MW, in the various cooling types for low installation heights – in addition to classic fin cooling, also available with water jacket cooling. With these versions, they seamlessly cover the corresponding power and application ranges – from basic or standard up to sector-specific applications. They can also address extreme requirements with degree of protection up to IP66. The compact motors set themselves apart because of its high-power density and compact design that applies across the board. Due to their outstanding reliability, as well as low maintenance, they boost plant and system availability and reduce energy costs based on their high efficiencies.
For three decades, Innomotics Perfect Harmony GH180 has stood as a defining force in medium voltage drive technology, transforming industry standards with unmatched reliability and digital innovation. This milestone celebrates a legacy of engineering excellence that continues to empower customers worldwide.
Since its introduction, the GH180 has gained global recognition as a trusted leader. Its innovative modular cell architecture delivers safe and efficient medium voltage power. With more than 25,000 installations internationally, the success of the GH180 rests on three core commitments:

1. Unwavering reliability and consistency
Providing steady and predictable operation that minimises downtime while maximising confidence.
2. Continuous innovation with user-centric efficiency
Evolving in response to customer needs, ensuring intuitive and accessible operation at every stage.
3. Advanced digital integration
Leveraging smart technologies through Inspire IQ, the company’s IIoT digitalisation solution for drive systems, to enhance performance and connectivity within the framework of Industry 4.0.

Describe how your CEMAT automation platform brings new value in cement plant operations?
Cement manufacturing is an exhaustive process, from Quarry to Lorry, and requires a high number of equipment to be controlled and signals to be monitored. Designed specifically for the Cement and Mining industries, CEMAT library efficiently operates processes with many interlocks and equipment, keeping the equipment safe.
Customers are continuously looking for efficient resource utilisation, without compromising the quality and performance KPIs. Here is where CEMAT an integrated process control system with cement and mining standards comes into view. CEMAT is not just about delivering some operation blocks but setting up plant operation culture in the right perspective, backed by 50+ years of experience and knowledge embedded in its DNA. Due to the legacy of CEMAT (900 installations worldwide), many cement manufacturers already speak the CEMAT language, making it easier for new customers to adapt to it quickly. Offering excellent process automation and a solid base for digitalisation, it plays a key role in all phases of cement production.

How are AI / data analytics solutions like AIKiln or AIMill (or equivalent) being used in cement plants?
Our DigiMine AI Pyro & AI Mill solutions provide optimum setpoints for Pyro and Mill automation systems, ensuring efficient and stable operations and thereby enhancing productivity and energy optimisation.
These solutions are powered by self-learning AI technology, which can adapt its algorithms in case of changes in the process or operating environment. AI Simulator – part of the solution further enables process teams to identify improvement areas and validate improvement steps virtually, saving time and material wastage in trying implementations of different steps at site.

In what ways does your portfolio support retrofits in legacy cement plants?
The PCS7 CEMAT-based automation solutions are truly scalable. It supports multiple versions in a single project; this enables individual sections to upgrade while other sections are in operation.
In new builds, the scalable capability of CEMAT automation solutions supports simultaneous commissioning of various plant sections, which helps in reducing the overall commissioning time.
For plant revamps, CEMAT automation solutions support cement manufacturers in scaling the plant while many sections are still in operation. Hence, with reduced overall downtime, customers can easily plan plant expansions during revamps.
For motors and drives, when their service life ends, we can modernise them either with a retrofit or an upgrade, depending on operational goals. Our tiered services cater to customer needs and can help assess the right approach for their goals, including what to do once the end of the lifecycle has been reached.
When the time has come, our drive retrofit and upgrade services provides customer production systems with the latest advancements for a high reliability and availability. A retrofit gives a functional replacement of the original drive, which may have unique properties or a special function. Upgrades, on the other hand, are more common – replacing section of the drives with new technology.
When the lifecycle of motor or generator comes to an end, Innomotics offers different options to cover your asset. This can either be a replica where the whole existing machine will be reproduced.
If customer prefer to choose a retrofit, the
latest technology machine from the current portfolio will be used with interface adaptions to fit into the existing installation.

What’s your approach to co-innovating with cement OEMs, plants, or academic R&D partners?
For over four years, we have been working and developing digital AI based process optimisation solutions like AI Pyro and AI Mill in close collaboration with domain and subject matter experts in cement production. Therefore, our digitalisation solutions bring a unique combination of process expertise and latest digital AI technology, thereby improving efficiency and productivity of process by identifying best operating parameter values and further optimising them based on current conditions.
These solutions are tested live in cement processes such as Pyro and Cement Mill at different cement plants, yielding promising outcomes. It creates its own knowledge database of good and bad operating conditions which it keeps on updating during operation, also considering feedback from expert and operator on a continuous basis, which makes the solution become more intelligent over the time, thereby recommending enhanced set point and improving process optimisation.

Over the next 5–10 years, which radical or disruptive technologies (beyond current stage) do you believe Innomotics must lead in?
The current advancement in electrical and automation technologies has enabled the system to achieve its peak performance for day-to-day activities far smoother than it was earlier. Also, Industry 4.0 has enabled automation systems to provide efficient and consistent data.
With this advancement, AI-based systems have started receiving continuous meaningful data to perform many activities, which has allowed AI / ML models to predict outcomes accurately, thereby helping customers achieve their sustainability goals.
Currently, we are implementing specific process AI systems i.e. AI Pyro and AI Mill. With our futuristic goal to develop a single AI system for the entire cement manufacturing process, we are on path to develop a common platform which can connect with different automation / third-party systems to collect data seamlessly, provide Analytics Dashboards and Reports 24X7 as well as provide set-points for control parameters from Quarry to Lorry.

Reference: Insights Magazine, Innomotics.com

Table 3a: Impact of Digital Tools
Achievable Improvements from AI Pyro: Derived Benefits:
• Specific heat consumption by 3 per cent – 5 per cent decrease
• AFR (Alternative Fuels) usage up to 5 per cent Increase
• Increase Process stability • Consistent clinker quality associated with stable process
• CO2 reduction
• Sulphur Content reduction
• NOx Content reduction
• Detection of preheater jamming at earlier stages

Achievable Improvements from AI Pyro: Derived Benefits:
• Productivity (Throughput) by 3 per cent – 5 per cent increase
• Specific Power Consumption up to 2 per cent Decrease • Increased machine availability