Cemcor sign three-year deal with EAM specialist

Northern Ireland cement and quarrying company continues to invest in sustainability programme 

CEMCOR, one of Northern Ireland’s leading cement production companies, have signed a new three-year deal with Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) specialists Peacock Engineering Ltd. The move comes as the company looks to further invest in improving processes, sustainability, and reducing the carbon footprint of its Cookstown plant.

The partnership with Peacock Engineering has seen Cemcor rapidly migrate their existing SAP system into IBM Maximo Application Suite (MAS). MAS, one of IBM’s sustainability software solutions, offers a single platform for intelligent asset management, monitoring, maintenance, computer vision, safety, and reliability, allowing the company to have a 360°, real-time view of its asset base, across multiple sites simultaneously, if needed.

Cemcor operate a range of facilities and sites across the region, including the cement plant, which has a production capacity in excess of 450,000 tonnes, a limestone quarry in Cookstown, a shale quarry in Dungannon, and an import/export facility in Belfast Harbour.

The investment in the new Maximo EAM system follows the announcement last year of LLC Group, one of Northern Ireland’s largest companies, investing £15 million in the firm.

MAS will enable Cemcor to gain better insight into the assets at the Cookstown plant, supporting the maintenance programmes and management of the plant’s diverse asset base, which includes a wide range of complex machinery and heavy equipment, including dumptrucks, crushers, conveyors, stone mills, granulators, and drying kilns.

The new system will help ensure the company is well placed to resolve its maintenance challenges and optimize its assets, helping to increase the lifespan of essential equipment and improve inefficiencies, including in the procurement and usage of replacement parts.

The new EAM system will also help to reduce downtime and its associated costs, and increase profitability, while also enabling Cemcor to understand and streamline processes at the plant.

Matt Deadman, chief operating officer of Peacock Engineering, said: ‘We’re thrilled to be working with Cemcor over the course of the next three years. We have already completed the first stage of our change programme with the successful delivery of their new EAM system. MAS is one of IBM’s sustainability software solutions and will provide Cemcor with a clearer view of their assets, which include heavy plant and processing equipment, and help in mitigating the current challenges found in their maintenance programme.’

The project was completed in just a few months by Peacock Engineering and is one of the first, and quickest, major implementations of IBM Maximo Application Suite (MAS) in the UK.

Mr Deadman added: ‘It’s been a pleasure working with Cemcor. As a specialist in both the technical aspects of engineering and in IT, we have managed the delivery in just two months. We are looking forward to working with Cemcor over the next few years to ensure their EAM solution continues to deliver the service level and efficiencies needed to meet their organizational objectives.’