Productivity and quality from Brno

1 Location – history and course of development

For Ian Campbell, the main arguments in favor of Brno go beyond the city’s geographical location in the heartland of Europe and its good transport links, including a regional airport situated a mere 2 km outside of town. What makes the city so attractive for multi-national coporations, apart from its historical significance, is its abundance of well-trained ­human resources. With a 200-year history of ­industrial activity and some 100 000 young people studying at several local universities and colleges, the second largest city in the Czech Republic has plenty of experience and innovativeness to offer. This is where Gregor Mendel, founder of the ­Mendelian inheritance theory and often referred to as the “father of genetics”, taught and did research. The Mahen Theater was the first such house to install electric theater lighting according to Thomas A. Edison. One of the most modern inno­vations stemming from young, innovative Brno is jet surfing on a motorized surfboard sporting an ­inboard gasoline engine.

The city’s high level of education is mirrored at FLSmidth spol. s.r.o. Two thirds of the plant’s presently 90-strong staff have either a master’s or a bachelor’s degree. “Our employees are not only well educated,” Campbell points out, “they are also very creative and inventive.” Yet another advantage of the plant’s location is that the personnel are, by tradition, readily able to communicate with their eastern European customers in their own language. That is why Eastern Europe is served and supported directly from Brno instead of from ­Central Sales in Copenhagen.

FLSmidth has been active in Brno for some years already. The company’s roots lie in the Czech company Autec, which was founded in 1991 by four engineers, all graduates from Brno Technical University, then acquired by FLSmidth in 2007 and now operating under the name ­FLSmidth spol. s.r.o. Brno Technical University has a vast store of knowledge about sample preparation and has contacts in the cement industry. After the integration of Autec into ­FLSmidth, FLSmidth spol. s.r.o. and FLSmidth Wuppertal coexisted with partially overlapping product portfolios.

2 Corporate strategies – productivity and quality

At FLSmidth, productivity as a corporate strategy encompasses not only better performance for the customer, but also improved in-house productivity. Based on the results of intensive analyses, it was decided to combine the Brno and Wuppertal facilities at a single location and to retain the best solutions and products from both portfolios. Relocating the Wuppertal production facility to Brno further expanded and strengthened the Czech site, where some 2300 m² of shop-floor area and more office space were added in mid-2016. The scope of re­focusment also covered the installation of test beds for the quality inspection of new apparatus and systems, along with high-quality workstations.

One key issue, quality assurance, runs like a red thread through production – as evidenced by a tour of the premises. The facility’s expansion also served to introduce some significant changes in the production process. The set objective was to successfully implement the 5 S method. As a Kaizen trainer, the production manager has extensive experience in this field. “Quality is his hobby,” emphasizes Ian Campbell.

Within the framework of high quality standards, it is only normal for the company’s philos­ophy to cover all inspections: receiving, in-process and final. No uninspected piece of equipment ever leaves the building. One fact that Ian Campbell stresses is that the 5S-compliant workstations serve as a foundation for the design and construction of high-tech products and a high level of flexibility.

3 At FLSmidth spol. s.r.o., close customer focus

is the be all and end all

All sales managers have an industrial background. One of them even stems from the lime industry. For all of them, closeness to the customer is very important. The plant and machinery produced in Brno are developed in part in close cooperation with the customers and accommodated to their own particular needs. Through close liaison with partners in the cement and lime sector, new ideas can be developed on the basis of their own copious know-how and extensive practical experience in dealing with the subject sample material. As Ian Campbell sees it, “It is essential to stay close to the customer and find out what he needs and what his problems are. That is the key to success.”

When that is done, the FLSmidth spol. s.r.o. development team of specialists in the areas of software, mechanical and electrical engineering translates the customer’s requirements into new products. In recent years, a number of entirely new systems have evolved that way. Examples include a Hot Kiln Sampler, Centaurus, DCF, ASP, Mammoth, AT-Line solutions and ACS.

The factory also includes a RoboLab with internal references for the front-end testing of all equipment. The customers want results they can work with. With that in mind, close contact is maintained with the experts at the headquarters FLSmidth in Copenhagen.

4 Four main activities

The portfolio of FLSmidth spol. s.r.o. embraces four fields of activity:

sampling

sample transport

sample preparation

automated analysis

When mistakes are made at the sampling stage, not even the best analysis can help, so the goal is to rule out all error in the first place. For practically any and all samples, an appropriate solution can always be found. Says Ian Campbell: “We speak the same language as our customers. We know what they need.” FLSmidth spol. s.r.o. provides the respectively optimal solution for all different applications.

4.1 Sampling

Samples are drawn either by hand or automatically at various points around the cement plant: raw, hot and coal meal, filter dust, kiln feed, clinker, cement mills, silos and cement dispatch. The manifold means of sampling are appropriately adapted to the respective requirements. The portfolio includes various kinds of samplers: piston, conveyor, pneumatic, airslide, hot meal sampler and so on.

The Hot Kiln Sampler used for cement and lime is a major new development for service at temperatures up to 1500 °C. At 900 °C, it can draw a sample every 4 minutes, with sample sizes ranging from 0.5 up to 1.2 liter and particle sizes can accommodate different particle size ranges up to 40 mm. Especially with respect to the increasing quantities of alternative fuels, now coming into use, constant monitoring of product quality is very important. Since manual sampling is practically impossible at such high temperatures, this automatic solution injects more safety into the production process. Developed in cooperation with a cement producer, this new sampler stands as a good example of FLSmidth Automation’s close customer ties.

4.2 Sample transport

FLSmidth offers a number of options for transporting samples from the process sampling point to laboratory: everything from manual sending and receiving stations to automatic in-lab receiving stations and automatic-plant sending stations.

4.3 Sample preparation

Good sample preparation is a basic prerequisite for accurate analysis. Only representative samples are substantive samples. Sample preparation is one of the single greatest sources of error in quantitative analysis, but it often receives the least amount of attention. Modern analytical instruments, including X-ray fluorescence (XRF), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Inductively coupled plasma (ICP) are capable of making incredibly precise measurements, but the results are only as good as the sample being presented to the instrument that makes the measurement. This makes it easy to obtain exactly the wrong results.

That is why high-quality sample preparation is so critical in a laboratory environment. High-­quality sample preparation requires attention to detail through a number of often repetitive and tedious tasks including grinding, sample weighing and dosing, pressing, fusion, dissolution and cleaning of the apparatus for the next sample. This provides many opportunities to introduce error into an analysis before it is ever made. FLSmidth products are designed to automate all tedious and labor-intensive tasks associated with preparing pressed pellets to insure high-quality analyses sample after sample (Table 1). “With the patented Centaurus,” explains Ian Campbell, “FLSmidth Automation is the sole manufacturer able to offer a combined device for grinding and pressing sample material for the lime industry.”

FLSmidth provides a number of automated sample preparation systems for XRD and XRF quantitative analysis. These complete solutions can either be used as stand-alone systems or incorporated into a fully automated laboratory providing cost-effective solutions that can grow with the laboratory needs.

4.4 Automated analysis

FLSmidth spol. s.r.o. also has a thick portfolio to offer for the field of automated analysis. For the cement and lime industry, this includes analyzers for determining Blaine surface areas, free lime contents, carbon/sulfur ratios and X-ray analysis (Table 2).

5 Plant quality control

The QCX system from FLSmidth is designed to control quality in production environments, and it fully meets industry standards for reliability and robustness in an industrial environment.

Automated sampling, sample preparation and analysis provide fast, reliable and consistent information for quality and process control.

The system supports quality control at all ­relevant stages of cement production in a single, integrated system. Combined with FLSmidth’s ­extensive experience in cement plant process control, the system incorporates an in-depth understanding of production environments and the high requirements for speed and performance.

The modular system architecture allows for any degree of automation. It can be scaled from small, task-targeted automation units to large, fully auto­mated laboratories. This modularity supports a phased approach to integrating automation.

6 Outlook

By merging the expertise and production to Brno, this full-range supplier of automation solutions for sample extraction, transport, preparation and analysis has set the stage for the future. Highly qualified, well-motivated staff with comprehensive know-how, close customer contact and new floor space for production and testing make ­FLSmidth Automation a stronger-than-ever partner to the cement industry.

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