Amreyah’s dispatching operations, by Cachapuz Bilanciai Group, Portugal

Amreyah Cimpor Cement Company implemented SLV Cement solution to automatically

manage weighing, logistics and dispatching operations in its cement plant at Alexandria, Egypt.

The Problem

Amreyah Cimpor Cement Company is located in Alexandria, Egypt and is one of the companies

of the Cimpor Group. The cement plant has an annual production capacity of over than 3.9

Millions tones and a great number of trucks are loaded and dispatched every day. The main

issues that led them to implement Cachapuz’ solution were related to expedition/dispatching

performance and vertical data integration with SAP ERP. They needed an integrated cement

dispatching solution and solved those issues at several levels:

• Logistics level – They needed to organize the parking zone and the queue of trucks

waiting to enter the plant.

• Expedition level – They needed a frontend module that allows the expedition

operators to manage all dispatching operations;

• Manager level – They needed a powerful reporting module that is able to deliver

business oriented reports to plant managers;

• Integration level – They needed a solution that integrates with SAP ERP and

guarantees the cement dispatching operations 24/7, even in case of communication

failure between the two systems.

• Weighing and Automation level – They needed an experienced and referenced supplier

of weighing and automation products.

Cimpor and Cachapuz Bilanciai Group have been working together since the 90’s,

implementing the SLV Cement solution (simply called SLV back then) in all Cimpor’s Portuguese

cement plants (Maia, Souselas and Alhandra cement plants). Because of the success in all

these projects and recognizing Cachapuz’ expertise, Cimpor’s awarded Cachapuz with the

implementation of the renewed SLV Cement solution at Amreyah plant, continuing with the

same supplier in other projects worldwide.

The Solution

SLV Cement is an innovative system focused on cement manufacturing plants and provides the

complete automation of the main functional areas: weighing, dispatching, shipping, parking,

entry/exit gates, bulk loading, bags loading, raw materials unloading and business analysis. The

solution integrates seamlessly with the client’s ERP in online/offline mode, assuring the

cement expedition and information registry even in case of communication failure between

the two systems. This innovative solution is scalable, modular and adaptable to small and large

cement companies worldwide. SLV Cement was customized to meet the needs of this project,

providing the necessary tools and equipments for the complete automation of its functional

areas (weighing, parking, entry/exit gates, bag loading and raw material unloading), the tools

for logistics management and business analysis (web portals, statistical data, business

indicators, automatic alerts, etc.) and the integration with SAP ERP in online/offline mode (to

ensure the plant will work even in case of communication failure between the two systems).

Amreyah was the first customer where were installed the last enhancements of the SLV

Cement solution, like rich color touch screens interfaces, with multimedia capability to allow

the system to inform truck drives with sound, video and pictures of the process; web based

modules to avoid the need of software installation in all the workstations; powerful logging

and analysis capabilities of process related data; expedition front-end, tailored to every

user/profile needs.

The solution installed at Amreyah plant is composed of:

• SLV Cement solution with online/offline integration with SAP ERP

• 3 entrance/exit zones (1 more under implementation)

• 1 SLV Parking Kiosk (with color touch screen and RFID card readers)

• 1 Information Panel (large dimensions with full visibility at 150 meters)

• 6 SLV Check-In / Check-Out Kiosks (with color touch screen, thermal printer, RFID card

readers, traffic lights and positioning sensors)

• 4 SLV Raw Materials Kiosks (with RFID card readers and embedded traffic lights)

• 2 SLV Load System Kiosk (with color touch screen)

• 6 weighbridges (2 more under implementation)

The Software

SLV Cement was installed with the new web based frontend modules that allow the operators

to manage the expedition operations directly from SLV Cement. The frontend was customized

by user profiles, showing the users only the needed options, preventing mistakes and process

errors. The modules can be accessed from every computer in the plant from web browsers,

avoiding the need to install software in each workstation. This kind of flexibility was possible

only because of the new enhancements of the SLV solution. The web interface was also a huge

advantage to Cachapuz support team, which can deploy any upgrade or new feature into the

system, remotely, without the need of holding the expedition operations. All the maintenance

operations in SLV Cement are transparent for the users, and are available to all of them

immediately. Besides the expedition tasks, the SLV Cement modules allow the users to analyze

the performance of the plant at several levels, like maintenance, logistics, dispatching and

shipping. The system generates detailed logs for every event occurred at every checkpoint of

the process and this information can be analyzed to detect and correct any possible delay or

bottleneck within the plant zones.

The Parking Zone

Here was installed the parking management module, which manages and organizes

automatically all the trucks before they can access to the entry gate. Each driver that arrives at

the cement plant must identify himself at the parking interface kiosk using a contactless RFID

card, previously configures with all the data associated with the loading or unloading

operation. After the identification, the SLV Cement parking module validates the RFID card and

the operation data against the ERP commercial modules, accepting or declining the operation.

After these validations, the drivers must wait for their turn before they can access the cement

plant. SLV Cement manages the trucks queue fairly and informs the drivers to enter at the right

time, via one large size information panel strategically placed in the parking zone to maximize

visibility. The parking zone manager module is a useful asset in the cement plant logistics,

preventing traffic bottlenecks, increasing the throughput of trucks dispatched and avoiding

mistakes and errors when calling the trucks to load or to unload inside the cement plant.

The Entrance

When SLV Cement calls the driver to enter the cement plant, he goes to the entry point and

identifies himself in the system, which ensures that the right truck is entering at the right

entrance. The system also validates if the truck is well positioned on the weighbridge through

positioning sensors and registers the first weight of the loading or unloading operation. The

system informs the driver were he must go to unload raw-material or to load cement,

automatically turning the green traffic light on, informing the driver that he can access the

cement plant and that he must proceed to the next checkpoint.

The Bags Loading

There are several bag loading lines at Amreyah cement plant. Although the truck loading is a

manual process, the solution was supplied with a bags loading kiosk to help the operator in the

process. The kiosk has a touch screen interface where the operator can see the list of trucks to

be loaded and the amount of bags planned for each one. The operator can start and stop the

loading operation, indicating to the system the progress of the loading operations. All the user

interactions with the SLV Cement kiosks are tagged with timestamps to be analyzed later at

the offices.

The Raw Materials Unloading

At Amreyah cement plant, there are several raw material unloading points and each truck

must be unloaded at the right one. To achieve this, the raw material unloading module was

installed and it controls several robust, simple, but process oriented kiosks which help the

drivers to know the right spot to unload the raw materials. RFID card activated, this equipment

informs the driver with the embedded traffic lights, indicating the state of the operation with

colors.

The Exit

At the exit point, the driver identifies himself in the kiosk, so that the system can acquire the

second weight of operation. If everything was correct during the process and the truck is well

positioned on the weighbridge, the system closes the operation, synchronizes all the logistics

data with SAP and prints the ready-for-trade documentation to the driver. After this last

checkpoint, the driver can leave the cement plant.

Business Analysis

All the SLV Cement modules installed in the Amreyah cement plant register information for

every event occurred during the process, from the truck arrival at the parking zone, to the exit

of the plant after the operation is completed. This information is tagged with timestamps that

allow the extraction of detailed process reports from the all system. All collected information is

processed and aggregated in detailed reports, which are available to consult by authorized

system users and that can be analyzed from several perspectives. Besides all the active and

explicit data exploration performed by the different users through all the available SLV Cement

analysis tools, SLV Cement pro-active features deliver automatic alerts and reports to the right

system users by e-mail or SMS, accelerating the reactions to those business data. All the

information processed and made available by SLV Cement assists the decision makers to

analyze the performance of the different process in their facilities and check for bottlenecks

within the dispatching processes, carrying out corrective measures to solve them and optimize

the cement plant.

ERP Integration

SLV Cement was integrated with SAP ERP complementing the cement plant commercial

department information with detailed logistics, weighing and dispatching information, creating

a vertical and tailored solution for the customer. The integration is available in online/offline

operation modes, assuring the cement expedition even in case of communication failures

between the two systems, 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, without data loss. This behavior

is possible due to SLV Cement frontend modules that are configured as an expedition software

used by the plant operators. All the information registered in SLV Cement side is immediately

synchronized to SAP commercial modules, assuring the data flow between both departments.

Support to the system

All the support to the SLV Cement software is assured by Cachapuz support team. Every

maintenance task is performed remotely without interfering in the plant processes. Cachapuz

support team is composed by specialized software engineers, able to solve and respond to

every support needs, assuring that the system and the plant is always working and dispatching

trucks loaded with cement. The simple maintenance to the hardware installed, like changing

paper in the printers, routine cleaning tasks, among other tasks are performed by the plant

maintenance team, which is trained by Cachapuz to become autonomous in this tasks. The

remaining hardware maintenance is guaranteed by Cachapuz Bilanciai business partner at

Egypt, which can supply any needed spare part of the system directly to the customer. With

this proven support method, Cachapuz can assure not only the continuous working of

Amreyah plant, but also the rest of the plants installed in the previous projects at Portugal,

Spain and South Africa.

Conclusion

With this solution the truck driver that arrives to the Amreyah cement plant performs the

loading/unloading process in self-service mode, interacting directly with the SLV Cement

interface kiosks: he identifies himself in the park kiosk, which validates the permission to

load/unload from SAP, and waits for the system to call him; when called in the information

panel, he goes to the entry weighbridge, identifies himself and the system registers the first

weigh after checking with positioning sensors that the truck is in the correct position; when

the traffic lights inform him to proceed, he goes to the indicated loading/unloading area,

where he performs the operation assisted by SLV kiosks; finally he goes to the exit

weighbridge, he identifies himself and the system registers the second weigh and prints the

necessary documentation in the kiosk, which completes the operation. All the information

flows smoothly between commercial and logistics departments in the cement plant and the

cement expedition is performed in self-service mode, even in case of communication failures

between SLV Cement and SAP ERP, 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. Cachapuz Bilanciai

Group deployed a vertical and tailored solution to the customer and the success of the

solution can e measured by some key statistics from one year of plant operation with the

system:

• Number of dispatching operations registered in one year: over 220.000,00

• Maximum number of vehicles dispatched in one hour: more than 100

• Maximum number of vehicles dispatched in one day: more than 1200

Cimpor is creating one more self-service expedition area to increase the response to the

increasing demand of cement. Because of the modularity and scalability of SLV Cement, this

plant enhancement is transparent and has no effect in the rest of the system, which will work

while the construction takes place and which will start operating as soon as the physical

infrastructure is completed.