Gaurav K Mathur, Director & Chief Executive, Global Technical Services, argues that lubrication excellence is no longer a maintenance function but a strategic discipline that directly influences reliability, sustainability, and manufacturing profitability.

In an industry where contamination, equipment wear, and unplanned downtime can quietly erode profitability, lubrication is emerging as a critical pillar of operational excellence. Gaurav K Mathur explains how Total Lubrication Management (TLM), oil diagnostics, condition monitoring, and AI-driven reliability intelligence are transforming maintenance strategies across cement plants. He highlights why contamination control, prescriptive maintenance, and closer collaboration between OEMs, lubricant suppliers, and asset owners will be essential for achieving higher equipment reliability, lower lifecycle costs, and long-term sustainability.

How are lubricant technologies evolving to meet the demanding operating conditions of modern cement plants?
Modern manufacturing is becoming increasingly challenging due to rising costs and shrinking profit margins. In this context, sustainability is no longer optional; it has become essential from both economic and environmental perspectives. As industries strive to remain competitive, tribologists and researchers are actively developing advanced lubricant solutions that not only deliver superior lubrication performance but also enhance energy efficiency and extend equipment life.
A well-engineered combination of base oils and additives plays a critical role in achieving the optimal balance between cost and performance. Through innovative formulations, manufacturers can significantly improve operational efficiency while supporting sustainability objectives. Lowering
the coefficient of friction in base oils through effective additive blending remains a key focus area for achieving these benefits.
However, in industries such as cement manufacturing, operational conditions are exceptionally harsh. High levels of dust and contaminants, along with extreme environments, make lubrication management significantly more complex. In such conditions, contamination becomes a critical barrier to achieving the full potential of high-performance lubricants. Therefore, ensuring contamination-free lubrication and implementing robust contamination control strategies within lubrication systems, particularly in sumps, is essential. Even the most advanced lubricants cannot deliver expected performance if lubrication practices are poorly managed. Ineffective lubrication management ultimately leads to wasted resources, reduced equipment life, and increased operational costs.
In essence, while selecting the right lubricant is important, disciplined lubrication practices and contamination control are equally vital to fully realise both performance and sustainability benefits.

How is the cement industry balancing sustainability goals with the need for heavy-duty lubrication performance?
Industry has progressively adopted the concept of Total Lubrication Management (TLM), which encompasses all critical aspects of lubrication, including lubricant indenting, storage, handling, dispensing, and contamination control. A well-structured and scientifically driven lubrication approach plays a vital role in enhancing lubricant life and ensuring optimal equipment performance.
Lubricants, when handled with proper care, discipline, and sensitivity, deliver significantly better reliability and efficiency. Organisations today are increasingly focusing on selecting the right balance between optimum lubricant quality and desired service life, rather than relying solely on periodic replacement practices. Hydrocarbon-based lubricants, in principle, do not have a fixed expiry date. Their usable life can be extended substantially through effective condition monitoring and contamination control. Therefore, lubricant life is less a function of time and more dependent on the lubrication strategy adopted and its consistency in implementation.
This approach aligns with modern TLM practices, where condition-based maintenance, contamination control, and systematic monitoring enhance both lubricant longevity and overall asset reliability.

In what ways are predictive maintenance and lubricant monitoring reshaping maintenance strategies in cement manufacturing?
Oil in a machine plays a role similar to blood in the human body. Just as blood diagnostics reveal the health condition of a person, oil analysis provides deep insights into both the lubricant condition and the mechanical health of equipment.
Having an oil analysis laboratory within the plant provides significant advantages, as test results are available immediately. This short turnaround time is critical because mechanical wear can begin to develop within 48 hours. Therefore, an on-site laboratory for monitoring oil condition and machine wear becomes essential for proactive maintenance and preventing equipment failure.
Through systematic oil and grease analysis, supported by professionals with extensive maintenance and lubrication expertise, organisations can identify wear patterns, contamination, and early signs of failure. This enables data-driven decisions that go beyond reactive or preventive maintenance. With advancements in analytics and domain expertise, the industry is moving from predictive maintenance to prescriptive maintenance. Predictive maintenance identifies what is likely to fail and when.
Prescriptive maintenance goes a step further by recommending what actions to take, why, and how to prevent recurrence. This shift is equivalent to having an expert doctor, not only diagnosing a condition but also prescribing precise treatment and, in some cases, eliminating the root cause entirely.
Global Technical Services brings over 25 years of experience in Total Lubrication Management. With a core team rooted in petroleum and maintenance backgrounds, the organisation has developed strong capabilities in:
• Lubricant performance evaluation
• Equipment condition monitoring
• Failure analysis and prevention strategies
• Maintenance optimisation
Building on the expertise of REMO: AI-Powered Reliability Intelligence, a machine learning-based AI platform named REMO (Reliable Equipment Manufacturing Operations) has been developed. REMO aims to:
• Predict Remaining Useful Life (RUL) of both lubricants and assets
• Analyse complex datasets from oil diagnostics and operating conditions
• Deliver actionable, prescriptive insights for maintenance teams
The model is continuously evolving, with ongoing research focused on achieving higher maturity, potentially enabling future predictions from even a single data point.
The Future: Intelligent, Prescriptive Reliability.
The combination of:
• Domain expertise
• Oil diagnostics
• AI-driven intelligence
is shaping a future where maintenance becomes proactive, precise, and outcome-driven.
In simple terms, the industry is entering an era where machines are monitored like patients-continuously, intelligently, and with expert-backed recommendations that ensure reliability, efficiency, and longevity.

What are the biggest lubrication challenges faced in critical cement equipment such as kilns, crushers, and gear systems?
With diminishing interest among youth in pursuing careers in core industries, organisations across the globe are facing a significant talent gap. Despite billions of dollars invested in infrastructure and industrial assets, the absence of skilled domain experts threatens to make these investments underutilised and less productive.
We continue to live in an industrial world that depends heavily on advanced materials and cost-efficient production systems. However, sustaining this ecosystem requires not only capital investment but also a capable workforce to operate, maintain, and innovate within it. The shortage of proficient professionals is therefore emerging as a critical challenge.
To address this gap, industries must increasingly rely on systems, mechanisation, robotics, automation, and artificial intelligence as complementary forces. These technologies are not replacements for humans, but enablers that can bridge capability gaps and enhance productivity. Machine learning and artificial intelligence, in particular, will play a pivotal role in supporting management decision-making through data-driven insights and predictive analytics.
The future of industry will depend on how effectively organisations balance human expertise with technological advancement to build resilient, efficient, and sustainable operations.

How do you see synthetic and specialty lubricants influencing the future efficiency of Indian cement plants?
At the end of the day, decisions should be driven by the overall cost of manufacturing and the total cost of ownership (TCO). Regardless of the lubricant selected, these factors must be addressed by the product.
With diminishing margins, decision-making is increasingly shifting toward a TCO-based evaluation rather than just upfront performance claims. While there may be a bias toward recommending high-performance products, the critical question remains: if the expected maximum service life cannot be realised due to operational constraints, is the investment justified?
In such cases, the focus must shift from theoretical performance to achievable value in real operating conditions. A solution that delivers consistent, optimised performance within constraints often provides better value than a premium product whose full potential cannot be utilised.
How important is collaboration between lubricant providers, OEMs, and cement manufacturers in driving operational excellence?
OEMs possess a deep understanding of the metallurgy and design limitations of equipment, while lubricant providers bring expertise in tribological requirements specific to each application. The cement plant asset owner, in turn, defines the overarching operational and strategic objectives.
Bridging these three critical stakeholders are professional lubrication companies, which act as reliability and sustainability partners. Organisations such as Global Technical Services play this integrative role by implementing Total Lubrication Management (TLM) across core industries, including cement.
TLM is a holistic concept that encompasses all aspects of lubrication, ranging from product selection and storage to application, monitoring, and optimisation, with the ultimate goal of operating assets in alignment with management’s performance, reliability, and sustainability objectives.

• Kanika Mathur

Sanjeev Arora, President – Motion Business & IEC LV Motors Division, ABB India, discusses efficient drive powertrain technology for cement manufacturing, which is powering India’s next phase of sustainable growth.

India’s growth story is being written at an unprecedented scale. From highways and airports to smart cities, metros, renewable energy parks and industrial corridors, infrastructure development is accelerating rapidly. At the heart of this transformation lies one of the country’s most foundational industries – cement. India is already the world’s second largest cement producer, and demand is expected to rise significantly over the next decade as investments in urbanisation, housing, manufacturing and public infrastructure continue to expand. However, the cement industry also finds itself at a defining crossroads. It must scale production while simultaneously reducing emissions, improving efficiency, strengthening reliability and ensuring operational excellence.
This is where technology will play a decisive role. For decades, motors and drives have quietly powered every stage of cement manufacturing, from crushers, kilns and conveyors to mills, fans and packing units. They have become strategic enablers of sustainability, digitalisation, safety and profitability. The future of cement manufacturing will be defined by plants that are not only more productive, but also more intelligent, energy efficient and resilient.
In many ways, the journey toward a leaner and cleaner cement industry begins with how motion systems are designed, monitored and optimised.

Decarbonising cement
A substantial share of electricity consumption within a cement plant comes from motor driven systems such as fans, pumps, compressors, conveyors and grinding mills. Globally, electric motors account for nearly 45 per cent of the world’s electricity consumption in industrial applications. This makes energy efficient motor systems one of the fastest and most impactful levers available for decarbonisation.
In India, where industrial energy demand continues to grow alongside economic expansion, improving motor efficiency can create meaningful environmental and business outcomes. Replacing IE2 motors with high efficiency IE4 and IE5 motors, combined with variable speed drives (VSDs), can significantly reduce energy consumption while improving process control. ABB’s latest generation of IE5 ultra-premium efficiency motors and synchronous reluctance motor technologies are helping industries achieve substantially lower energy losses compared to conventional systems.
Compared to the commonly deployed IE2 motors, IE5 motors can achieve nearly 50 per cent lower energy losses across several operating ranges, making them particularly relevant for energy intensive sectors such as cement where motors operate continuously at scale. In large scale industrial applications, it is estimated that upgrading to IE5 motor systems can deliver energy savings significant enough to enable payback periods of nearly one to two years, depending on operating hours and load conditions.
The impact goes beyond energy bills. Lower energy consumption directly contributes to reduced carbon emissions and supports India’s broader sustainability ambitions, including the country’s commitment toward net zero pathways and industrial decarbonisation. At ABB in India, our installed base of motors and drives has already contributed to significant annual energy savings across industries. According to our estimates, ABB motors and drives installed over last 12 years, save nearly 20 TWh of electricity annually in India, equivalent to roughly half of Delhi’s annual electricity consumption.

Rise of the digital plant
As cement plants become larger and more automated, operational continuity has become critical. Unplanned downtime in a cement facility can lead to significant production losses, supply chain disruptions and maintenance costs. This is driving a major shift toward digitally connected operations.
The next generation of motors and drives is embedded with intelligent monitoring capabilities that enable real time visibility into equipment performance, energy consumption and operating conditions. Combined with Industrial IoT, advanced analytics and predictive maintenance solutions, plant operators can now move from reactive maintenance to proactive asset management. In practical terms, this means maintenance teams can detect anomalies such as overheating, vibration imbalances or bearing degradation long before equipment failure occurs.
Predictive maintenance technologies are especially important in cement manufacturing because of the extreme conditions in which equipment operates. Dust, vibration, fluctuating loads and high ambient temperatures place enormous stress on rotating equipment. Digital condition monitoring systems can continuously assess equipment health, identify performance deviations and help optimise maintenance schedules, reducing downtime, extending equipment life and improving operational reliability.
As cement manufacturers navigate fluctuating energy prices, changing market demand and sustainability targets, intelligent motor systems provide the flexibility needed to optimise production dynamically.

Toward total cost of ownership
One of the most significant shifts taking place in industrial decision-making today is moving away from evaluating equipment based solely on upfront capital cost toward understanding total cost of ownership (TCO). In a typical motor system, the purchase price often represents only a small fraction of the total lifecycle cost however energy consumption, maintenance requirements, downtime and operating efficiency account for the vast majority of long-term operational expenses. For cement manufacturers operating in highly competitive markets, this distinction is critical.
A high efficiency motor paired with an appropriately configured variable speed drive may require a higher initial investment, but the long-term benefits are substantial. Reduced electricity consumption, lower maintenance needs, longer service intervals and improved process stability can deliver faster payback and stronger profitability over time.
In addition to reducing energy use, optimised drive powertrain also minimises mechanical stress on equipment. This improves reliability and reduces wear on bearings, couplings and connected systems.
As sustainability reporting and energy benchmarking become increasingly important
across industries, forward looking cement manufacturers are recognising that investments in efficient drive powertrain create both operational and environmental value.

Engineering reliability
Cement applications demand robust insulation systems, superior thermal management, advanced sealing technologies and durable mechanical construction. ABB’s heavy-duty motors and drives are engineered specifically to withstand these extreme operating environments while maintaining efficiency and performance.
Equally important is the ability to maintain serviceability over long operating lifecycles.
In sectors such as cement, where plants are expected to operate continuously for decades, lifecycle support becomes a strategic consideration. Modernisation, retrofitting and service solutions are therefore playing an increasingly important role in helping operators improve efficiency with minimal upgradation and without requiring complete infrastructure replacement.
ABB’s Motion Services portfolio supports customers through predictive maintenance,
performance optimisation, digital diagnostics
and lifecycle management solutions designed to maximise uptime and equipment longevity. Reliability in cement manufacturing is no longer simply about avoiding breakdowns. It is about ensuring continuity, protecting productivity, enabling operational confidence and excellence.

Safety-productivity connection
Industrial safety and operational productivity are deeply interconnected. As cement plants become more automated and digitally integrated, modern motor and drive technologies are also contributing to safer work environments. Remote monitoring capabilities reduce the need for personnel to physically inspect equipment in hazardous or hard to access areas. Intelligent systems can provide alerts, diagnostics and performance insights remotely, improving both safety and maintenance response times.
Advanced drive technologies also support safer operations through smoother start-and-stop, controlled acceleration and reduced mechanical shocks. These capabilities not only protect equipment but also reduce operational risks for plant personnel. Additionally, digitally enabled systems improve visibility into operational conditions, helping teams respond more effectively to potential safety issues before they escalate. In many ways, the modern cement plant is evolving into a more connected and collaborative ecosystem where automation, digital intelligence and motion technologies work together to improve both human safety and operational excellence.

India’s infrastructure ambitions
The cement industry is entering a transformative phase. As India advances toward becoming a global manufacturing and infrastructure powerhouse, the sector will need to balance growth, competitiveness and sustainability simultaneously. It is an opportunity for us to help industries outrun leaner and cleaner. By combining energy efficiency, digital intelligence and engineering innovation, the cement sector can accelerate its transition toward a more sustainable and resilient future while continuing to power India’s growth ambitions. And that journey has already begun.

About the author
Sanjeev Arora, President – Motion Business & IEC LV Motors Division, ABB India comes with nearly three decades of experience in industrial motion technologies, energy-efficient motor systems, and driving sustainable industrial transformation across India and the Middle East & Africa.

Girish Hanchate, Director – Industrial Market, India, SKF India (Industrial), explains how intelligent bearings, predictive maintenance, and digital technologies are helping cement manufacturers unlock higher reliability, lower maintenance costs, and improved sustainability.

As India’s cement industry gears up for significant capacity expansion, the reliability of rotating equipment has become a critical determinant of plant performance. Girish Hanchate, discusses how advanced bearing technologies, automated lubrication systems, condition monitoring, and Industry 4.0 enabled predictive maintenance are transforming asset management. He highlights how innovations that extend equipment life, reduce grease consumption by up to 99 per cent, and improve energy efficiency are helping cement plants enhance uptime, lower operating costs, and support long-term sustainability goals.

How are advanced bearing and drive technologies improving the reliability and efficiency of cement plant operations?
India’s cement sector is undergoing unprecedented expansion, with production jumping 9.4 per cent year on year in April 2026. This massive surge, fuelled by national infrastructure initiatives, places immense pressure on plants to maintain continuous, high volume output. In this environment, advanced bearing and drive technologies are no longer just mechanical components—they are core drivers of industrial efficiency. Modern innovations, such as our newly engineered sealed spherical roller bearings for High Pressure Grinding Rolls (HPGRs), are custom built to survive intense radial loads. By integrating smart geometry and heavy duty sealing, these technologies drastically reduce friction and lower operational temperatures. When integrated with SKF Insight, these bearings provide continuous visibility into critical operating parameters, including load, speed, vibration, and temperature. This real time intelligence enables maintenance teams to move from reactive interventions to predictive maintenance, helping improve equipment reliability, extend service intervals, and minimise unplanned downtime across cement operations.
Practically, this delivers double the traditional asset lifespan and reduces grease consumption by up to 99 per cent. For an industry operating under tight timelines, cutting down grease waste and extending service intervals means moving away from constant manual maintenance toward highly reliable, self sustaining machinery. Ultimately, this allows Indian cement manufacturers to scale up production and protect their margins without compromising their strict sustainability goals.

What are the biggest challenges faced by rotating equipment in the harsh operating conditions of cement manufacturing?
Cement manufacturing is famously brutal on machinery. Rotating equipment must constantly endure what we at SKF refer to as the big three industry challenges: abrasive dust contamination, heavy vibrating loads, and extreme thermal spikes. As Indian cement makers aggressively add an estimated 160 to 170 million tonnes of capacity between 2026 and 2028, equipment is being pushed harder than ever before. When fine clinker dust penetrates a traditional bearing housing, it acts like sandpaper, causing rapid premature wear and lubrication starvation.
Furthermore, the rising adoption of Variable Frequency Drives (VFDs) to control motor speeds has introduced a hidden, modern threat: stray electrical currents that cause devastating electrical erosion inside motor bearings. At SKF India Industrial, we tackle these harsh realities head on. By engineering specialised solutions like our VA9A1 series, which features increased internal space for higher grease retention, CeraDrive bearings with ceramic elements that eliminate 99 per cent of electrical erosion, locally engineered VA029 series for Crushers and Gear Boxes, we help plants defend their vital machinery against these aggressive elements and prevent catastrophic failures.

How is predictive maintenance reshaping the management of gears, drives, and motors in modern cement plants?
Historically, cement plants operated on a rigid, time based schedule, routinely shutting down machinery and replacing components whether they genuinely needed it or not. Today, with India’s domestic capacity utilisation holding at a high 70 per cent to meet aggressive infrastructure demands, unplanned downtime is an expensive financial risk that industry leaders must actively eliminate. Predictive maintenance (PdM) is completely rewriting this traditional playbook by replacing manual guesswork with real time, data backed strategy. Instead of waiting for a critical kiln drive, motor, or heavy duty gearbox to fail catastrophically, we utilise advanced AI driven remote diagnostics to monitor microscopic changes in vibration, temperature, and mechanical stress.
A vital pillar of this modern transformation is integrating SKF Automatic Lubrication Systems directly into the plant’s overall predictive framework. Manual, periodic regreasing often introduces human error, leading to dangerous over lubrication or premature wear from under lubrication. Our automated systems remove this risk by delivering the precise quantity of clean, uncontaminated lubricant to critical bearings at the exact right operational interval. This seamless combination of continuous health tracking and automated machinery care shifts the factory floor from crisis management to strategic preservation. Ultimately, it empowers engineering teams to synchronise component maintenance perfectly with planned plant turnarounds, turning maintenance into a predictable driver of profitability.

In what ways can intelligent condition monitoring help reduce downtime and extend equipment life?
Intelligent condition monitoring acts as a continuous digital health check for critical machinery operating across the entire cement value chain. By deploying a connected network of wireless sensors, analytical software, and cloud based platforms, we gather real time data from deep within rotating machinery. This constant stream of information helps us catch microscopic defects, such as a hairline flaw in a bearing raceway—weeks before it can trigger an operational shutdown. In heavy exposure applications like conveyor systems, combining this digital insight with targeted physical innovations, such as the SKF Three barrier solution, delivers remarkable results.
This specialised solution provides a triple layer of physical defence: an outer housing equipped with heavy duty taconite mechanical seals, a grease filled housing cavity that traps incoming particles, and an inner sealed SKF Explorer bearing as the final line of defence. This unified approach allows operators to monitor the inner workings of the equipment via smart sensors while the physical barriers aggressively prevent abrasive clinker dust ingress. Consequently, manual regreasing intervals can be safely reduced from once a week to just twice a year, saving up to 90 per cent of maintenance time and grease costs. Addressing mechanical and thermal stress early stops minor flaws from compounding into catastrophic failures that damage adjacent
gears and shafts. Ultimately, intelligent monitoring eliminates unexpected shutdowns, maximises asset
lifecycle, and enables operators to sync maintenance windows perfectly with planned plant turnarounds, ensuring a highly predictable, high performance production environment.

How important is energy efficient drive technology in supporting the cement industry’s sustainability goals?
Energy efficient drive technology has become a critical enabler in helping the cement industry achieve its sustainability and decarbonisation objectives. Cement manufacturing is highly energy intensive, with motors and drives accounting for a significant share of total power consumption across operations such as grinding, crushing, conveying, and kiln systems.
Advanced drive technologies, including variable frequency drives (VFDs) and high efficiency motors, enable plants to optimise energy usage by matching motor speed and torque to actual process requirements. This not only reduces electricity consumption but also lowers carbon emissions and operational costs. Alongside these systems, SKF’s AEM31 energy efficient bearings are engineered to reduce bearing friction by up to 25 per cent, helping improve the power efficiency of rotating equipment such as motors and pumps.
In addition, energy efficient drives improve equipment reliability, minimise mechanical stress, and extend machinery life, contributing to overall plant productivity and reduced maintenance interventions. As the industry moves towards greener manufacturing practices, integrating intelligent and efficient drive systems will be essential for achieving both environmental compliance and long term operational resilience.

What role do lubrication, alignment, and vibration control play in optimising the performance of critical cement plant machinery?
Lubrication, alignment, and vibration control are fundamental pillars of reliable rotating equipment performance in cement plants. Given the harsh operating conditions, including high temperatures, heavy loads, and dust contamination, maintaining machinery health is essential to ensuring uninterrupted production.
Proper lubrication reduces friction and wear, protects bearings and critical components, and significantly enhances equipment lifespan. Equally important is precision alignment, which minimises unnecessary stress on shafts, couplings, and
bearings, thereby improving efficiency and reducing energy losses.
Vibration control and condition monitoring provide early insights into potential equipment issues such as imbalance, misalignment, looseness, or bearing failures. By identifying these problems before they escalate, plants can move from reactive maintenance to predictive maintenance strategies, reducing unplanned downtime and improving
asset availability.
Together, these practices help cement manufacturers improve operational efficiency, lower maintenance costs, enhance safety, and maximise overall equipment effectiveness (OEE).

How do you see digitalisation and Industry 4.0 influencing the future of rotating equipment management in the cement sector?
Digitalisation and Industry 4.0 are transforming the way cement plants manage rotating equipment by enabling smarter, data driven decision making. The integration of intelligent sensors, real time monitoring systems, predictive analytics, and AI powered diagnostics is helping manufacturers shift from time based maintenance to condition based and predictive maintenance models.
Connected technologies allow operators to continuously monitor parameters such as vibration, temperature, lubrication condition, and energy consumption across critical assets. This real time visibility helps identify performance deviations early, optimise maintenance schedules, and prevent costly equipment failures.
In the future, we expect digital twins, remote diagnostics, and cloud enabled asset management platforms to play an even larger role in improving reliability, efficiency, and sustainability. Industry 4.0 will not only enhance plant uptime and operational agility but also support the cement industry’s broader goals of energy optimisation, resource efficiency, and reduced environmental impact.
At SKF India Industrial, we believe the future of rotating equipment management lies in combining domain expertise with intelligent technologies to create more resilient, efficient, and sustainable industrial operations.