Development and adoption of appropriate technologies for enhancing productivity in the cement sector

Context

The project aimed to support the Indian cement industry by strengthening the capacity and capability of the nodal technical institution for the industry - the National Council for Cement and Building Materials (NCCBM) - to provide better management and technical support to the industry. The aim of this comprehensive set of capacity building activities was to enable NCCBM to acquire the necessary exposure to, and knowledge of, best available technologies and best practices across the global cement industry, and to facilitate implementation of appropriate technologies and measures in the Indian context.

Activities

The main activities of the project included:

1. Benchmarking report of the cement sector.
2. Diagnostic assessment of NCCBM, including technical and institutional capacities.
3. Development of KPIs for the cement sector
4. Skills and capacity building programmes for NCCBM: technical workshops, study tours, fellowship training programmes.
5. Support for development of new standards for the cement sector.

Achievements

The project’s overall achievements are outlined below:

1. Enhanced expertise, skills and exposure to best available technologies and global best practices at NCCBM, with a focus on utilization of alternative fuels and raw materials for cement production, as mentioned below:
1. 208 participants trained through 8 technical workshops.
2. 8 participants trained in Alternative Fuels project management and CO2 audits.
3. 11 participants trained through study tours in 5 countries.
4. 18 participants trained through 3 group fellowship trainings in 3 countries.
2. Addition of new services in NCCBM’s existing service portfolio: NCCBM is now able to offer consultancy towards the utilization of alternative fuels in cement plants as well as additional audit services for alternative fuels project management and CO2 emissions management.
3. Establishment of institutional linkages and partnerships with leading technical institutions and organizations from the global cement industry, such as VDZ (Germany), the European Cement Research Academy (ECRA, Germany), the Austrian Cement Industry Association (Vereinigung Österreichischer Zementindustrie (VÖZ)), The Concrete Institute (South Africa), FLSmidth (Denmark), Febelcem (Belgium), the Walloon Business Foundation (Belgium), the Polish Cement Industry (SPC - Stowarzyszenie Producentow Cementu), Japan Cement Association and various modern cement plants in Germany, Austria, Spain, Japan and Poland.
4. Generation of technical resource and reference material, including detailed diagnostic and benchmarking reports, along with publications focusing on alternative fuels and raw materials, best available technologies, patents and intellectual property rights (IPRs), key performance indicators (KPIs), audit toolboxes, and learning material/ presentations from each of the training programmes.
5. Inputs by NCCBM to the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) for the development of two new standards for the Indian cement industry pertaining to composite cement and use of construction & demolition wastes as aggregates for concrete.