As the 2030 FIFA World Cup approaches, Morocco is experiencing unprecedented demand for precast concrete elements. SMM DAVUM, one of Morocco’s leading precast manufacturers, entrusted ALFI Technologies with the modernization of its two ADLER A860 presses. The goal: restore and exceed original performance, improve Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) and secure production capacity that has become critical.
The starting point: two heavily used presses
SMM DAVUM operates one of the largest precast concrete facilities in Morocco: two mirror-arranged A860 presses, each designed to produce ten 20 × 20 × 50 cm blocks every 17 seconds. After nearly twenty years of intensive operation, several weak points had appeared:
- Hydraulics: recurring leaks, oil overheating, longer response times and frequent micro-stoppages
- Feedboxes: imprecise hydraulic agitation, filling defects and density variations in the blocks
- Vibration: settings based on operator experience, drifting and only detected at quality control, leading to rejects
- Maintenance: no production data tracking, reactive breakdown handling, a high mean time to repair and expertise leaving with retiring specialists
A three-pronged retrofit
1. Mechatronic feedbox agitators
The feedbox is fully replaced, with an electromechanical agitator instead of hydraulics and guide columns instead of rollers. From the control panel, the operator sets the agitation speed: constant during filling, different forward and backward, or combined depending on the concrete and block type. Filling is more homogeneous, maintenance is simpler, and the feedbox is now identical to that of the latest A860N presses installed in Morocco.
2. Electronically synchronized vibration
Vibration, the heart of the process, moves to MoviAdler technology: table vibrators are synchronized electronically, with a cardan shaft transmission and elastic coupling. Frequency, amplitude and duration are controlled and traced for every batch. The result: fewer compaction non-conformities, less maintenance and settings adjusted to the materials.
3. Next-generation hydraulics
The hydraulic unit is replaced with a variable-flow pump, identical to the A860N’s, with proportional valves and a heat exchanger sized to keep oil temperature stable. Movements are faster and more precise, energy consumption drops, and spare parts are shared with the latest presses.
The result: 14% more boards
On line 1, the cycle went from 20 seconds to 17.5 seconds per board after the upgrade, about 14% more output, measured by the ALFI InUse platform.
ALFI InUse and AIDY to run production
Beyond the mechanics, SMM DAVUM deployed ALFI InUse, our industrial AI platform, at its own pace:
- Digital foundation: centralized documentation, scheduled preventive maintenance, incident and spare parts tracking
- AIDY-assisted troubleshooting: the operator describes the problem, AIDY proposes the solution from the knowledge base validated by our experts and writes the intervention report. Mean time to repair goes down, and every resolved intervention enriches the plant’s memory
- Real-time data: vibration settings linked to strength results and dimensional checks, with an alert as soon as a setting drifts, and mix design optimization to limit cement use
A model for plants that want to produce more without investing in a new line
The SMM DAVUM project shows that an aging press can become a competitive asset again: targeted retrofit of the hydraulics, feedboxes and vibration, then data-driven management with ALFI InUse and AIDY. We take the same approach on ADLER presses and on the older generations taken over by ADLER.
A detailed version of this project was published in CPI – Concrete Plant International.