Case Study

Plantwide Cement Modernization and Capacity Expansion

Cement production factory on mining quarry. Conveyor belt of heavy machinery loads stones and gravel

Client Overview

The Cement provider was expanding operations in Alabama to include a new vertical kiln to increase the operation’s capacity and efficiency. The expansion required the modernization of controls for the legacy areas of the plant during the construction phase of the new kiln, including modernizing the finishing mill and loadout facilities and a significant upgrade to the plant control room HMI System. The plant had legacy PLC hardware and software that were challenging to maintain. The software was outdated, and the coding did not conform to the global control standards of the company. The mill needed a local partner who could achieve the modernization objectives of the plant expansion with minimum disruption of current production.


Services Provided:

Revere provided hardware design and fabrication services in multiple areas of the plant. The services included major control system and network communication upgrades in finishing, loadout, and other systems supporting the expansion and modernization. Revere also provided 12 weeks of onsite general coverage of programming and troubleshooting during the project implementation.

  • Network design and implementation
  • Control Panel design and fabrication
  • Rockwell Automation PLC programming
  • HMI programming with Wonderware System Architecture
    • New graphics
    • Alarm management
    • Diagnostics
  • Porting of corporate coding standards into the new Rockwell platforms
  • Factory Acceptance Testing
  • Integration of new and legacy systems
  • Onsite checkout and commissioning support
  • Extended engineering coverage for plant control systems

Customer Results:

The new kiln and modernized production areas are up and running, and the capacity improvement goals are being met. The software code is now compliant with corporate standards for PLC and HMI code, which Revere ported to Rockwell Automation from Siemens. The new systems are more maintainable and provide operators with greater insights into the operation. During the 14-month project execution period, operations continued at their normal level. Revere executed and commissioned the project with no added downtime in the schedule.