Ball mills are now an obsolete technology for the global cement industry, mainly on account of high specific power consumption, limitations on the throughput rates, as the modern and the latest state-of-the-art technology, is not only for lower specific power consumption, very low noise level and comparatively lower space requirement.

Modern large to very large cement plants are using Vertical Roller Mills ( VRM), Roller Press system alone in close circuit, or Roller Press with ball mill in close circuit, for raw grinding ,fuel pulverization ( grinding of solid fuels like coal ,pet-coke and lignite or a combination of these fuels ) and finish grinding. ( manufacturing of various varieties / types of cements ) . This three-in-one VRM ,combines drying ,classifying and grinding functions, is highly efficient w. r. t. power consumption and throughput , besides the very low noise levels i.e. quite eco-friendly to the industry. Currently more and more mineral processing industries globally are switching over to these large capacity ( capacities of +1000 TPH ) are already operating in some plants.