Kestrel Coal is an underground mine producing high quality coking coal and thermal coal for export, using longwall technology and is located in the Bowen Basin in Australia. An upgrade was being considered for the Human Machine Interface (HMI) and the Kestrel personnel were faced with the problem of porting across the large number of alarms from one system to the next. The number of alarms was well above the guidelines set out by the Engineering Equipment and Materials Users Association (EEMUA).
Additionally, the alarm management system in MacroView (the HMI) had been essentially disabled - the audible alarm disconnected and the alarm page unused by the operators.
To transition to a new HMI, Matrikon was contracted help increase productivity and improve safety by integrating ProcessGuard, an alarm management application. Increased productivity requires that the operators and supervisors respond quickly to plant upsets to ensure constant production. As well, continuous monitoring and equipment maintenance reduces down time, and helps operators understand process upsets so as to prevent future occurrences. Improving site safety requires that the operators can respond immediately to high priority alarms and thus bring the plant back under control.