Africa’s cement industry is under growing pressure to produce more while consuming less. As urbanisation accelerates across the continent, demand for cement continues to rise, driven by infrastructure development, housing projects, renewable energy investments, and industrial expansion. Whilst the manufacturers are operating in an increasingly challenging environment marked by rising electricity costs, unstable power supply, sustainability pressures, and tighter operational margins.

Globally, cement manufacturing accounts for approximately 7– 8 % of total carbon emissions, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). The sector is also one of the most energy-intensive industries in the world, requiring substantial electricity and thermal energy to sustain production. The IEA estimates that cement production consumes around 100 kWh of electricity per ton produced, placing enormous pressure on energy systems and operational costs.

In South Africa and across Africa, the challenge is even more pronounced. Persistent energy instability and rising utility tariffs continue to impact industrial productivity, forcing manufacturers to rethink how operations are managed and optimised. In this environment, digitalisation and intelligent automation are becoming critical tools for improving resilience, efficiency, and competitiveness.

Across global manufacturing, companies are increasingly investing in advanced process control, predictive analytics, and automation technologies to improve productivity while reducing waste. According to McKinsey research, industrial automation is rapidly expanding across process-intensive sectors such as mining, chemicals, and cement production as businesses seek greater efficiency, reliability, and sustainability.

For cement plants, this shift is particularly important because production environments are highly complex and highly variable. Small fluctuations in kiln temperature and fuel mix can significantly affect energy efficiency, product quality, and equipment lifespan. Traditional manual operating methods are increasingly unable to manage these variables effectively in real time.

This is where advanced process optimisation technologies such as ABB’s Expert Optimizer are reshaping operations. Using model predictive control, neural networks, and real-time analytics, these systems continuously monitor and adjust plant conditions to stabilise performance and maximise efficiency. Expert Optimizer is a digital solution that provides advanced process techniques, including linear and non-linear model predictive control, fuzzy logic, neural networks and analytical AI to always make the best operational decisions accurately and consistently in high-pressure environments.

The global results demonstrate the value of this approach. ABB Ability™ Expert Optimizer results in maximizing the use of alternative fuels, increasing recovery in product by 1% to 3% , reducing quality variation by up to 30%, and increasing throughput by up to 8%. In many use cases, plants have achieved return on investment in less than 12 months through lower fuel consumption, re-duced downtime, and improved process stability.

Recent global projects further illustrate how integrated automation is transforming industrial pro-duction. ABB’s collaboration with Novada Cement in the United States is one such example. ABB deployed electrification, automation, and drives solutions at a new cement plant in Florida to im-prove process visibility, reliability, and control over cement production to provide operational deci-sion-making across the facility.

For African manufacturers, this creates both urgency and opportunity. Many industrial facilities across the continent are currently modernising or expanding, creating an opportunity to adopt more advanced and efficient production systems from the outset. However, successful digital transfor-mation is not only about technology deployment. It also depends on aligning systems, people, and operational priorities. Human expertise remains essential in industrial environments, particularly in operationally demanding sectors.

This collaboration between operational expertise and automation is increasingly shaping the future of industrial manufacturing globally. As energy costs rise and sustainability expectations intensify, operational efficiency will become one of the cement sector’s most important competitive differen-tiators. In fact, the future of cement production will not be defined solely by how much is produced, but by how intelligently, efficiently, and sustainably production is achieved.