Case Study: Rio Tinto Iron Ore (Pilbara Iron) Centralized Monitoring Solution

Home , Cape Lambert, Pilbara Iron, Rio Tinto (river)

of 2007, seven mines all linked by the world’s largest privately owned rail network.

Challenges To meet the growing demand for their iron ore, particularly from the ever-growing Chinese market, Pilbara Iron were faced with the challenge of increasing production from their mining operations, or more importantly preventing stoppages in production, while maintaining quality. It was recognized that the process control systems at their processing plants were critical assets required to be available and reliable while keeping the plant within the optimal production limits.

At the same time the mining industry, like most industries, was and is facing a worldwide shortage of skilled labor to operate and maintain their plants. Rio Tinto Iron Ore Figure 1. Pilbara Iron’s operations has the added burden of very remote mining operations, making it even harder to attract and retain experienced and skilled labor, Profile particularly control and process engineers. The mining operations of Rio Tinto Iron Ore (Pilbara Iron) in Australia are located in the Pilbara Region, In order to offer the benefits of living in a a remote outback area in northwest Western modern thriving city, a group of process control Australia, some 1200 kilometers from Perth. Pilbara professionals was established in Perth. Iron has three export port facilities and, by the end The members of this team came from Rio Tinto A web-based solution Asset Utilization, a corporate support group To meet this need a centralized monitoring solution established within Rio Tinto at the time to address was established, with data collection performed at performance improvement across all operations the sites and analysis and diagnosis undertaken worldwide, and Pilbara Iron itself. This team was, in centrally. To get the information to the team, the the words of Pilbara Iron’s Matt Harvey, Specialist sites and management in a timely manner so on the centralized monitoring initiative “challenged it could be acted upon, it was decided that web with the task of improving the performance delivery of the information would be the preferred of process control assets across Pilbara Iron choice. After reviewing the current technology operations.” in the market it was decided to combine a tool developed in-house with commercial off-the-shelf To meet this challenge the team would: web-based products from Matrikon to deliver the centralized monitoring solution. • Undertake improvement projects • Highlight maintenance issues The solutions implemented for the components of • Improve the understanding of how process The centralized monitoring solution were: control effects operational processes • Implement measures that describe current • Dynamic Constraint Utilization (DCU) – an in- performance and identify opportunities for house application that identifies, from a control improvement perspective, which units or areas in a process are causing a bottleneck Since the team was located centrally in Perth, some • Matrikon Alarm Manager – a web-based product 1200 kilometers from the mine sites, they had to used to historize alarms and events and provide have remote access to the plant data, as well as powerful analysis tools for alarm management automated tools providing diagnostic information • Matrikon Control Performance Monitor – a web- on control system performance and highlighting based product used to analyze the performance problem areas. They also needed to be able to of control loops, identify problem areas and echo this information back to the sites so onsite provide problem diagnosis operations and maintenance people could better understand their processes and take action to ensure continuous optimal operation.

OPS PI Historian Servers at each Site

Mount Tom Price Paraburdoo Marandoo Brockman West Angelas Pannawonica Yandicoognia Dampier Cape Lambert Web Report Client

High Speed Ethernet Network (Perth to Pilbara - 1400km)

Firewall

Perth Ethernet Network

Thick Client Admin Terminal MatrikonTM Control Web Report Client And Web Report Client Performance Monitor

Figure 2 – Centralised Monitoring Architecture for Matrikon™ Control Performance Monitor. Alarm Collectors on SCADA (HMI) Terminals

Note: Collectors also buffer Mount Tom Price Paraburdoo Marandoo Brockman West Angelas Pannawonica Yandicoognia Dampier Cape Lambert Web Report Client alarms

High Speed Ethernet Network (Perth to Pilbara - 1400km)

Firewall

Central Alarm Archiver PERTH

Perth Ethernet Network

Thick Client Admin Terminal Web Report Client Web Report Client And Web Report Client Figure 3 – Centralised Monitoring Architecture for Matrikon™ Alarm Manager

Benefits The benefits Rio Tinto realized through the Moving forward centralized monitoring project include: Following on the demonstrated successes of the centralized monitoring solution, Pilbara Iron will • Increased visibility of the process control continue to use the software tools to identify, systems and how they are affecting quantify and qualify opportunities for improvement performance in production and reliability. As familiarity with • Identification of bottlenecks in the process the system grows, Pilbara Iron’s work processes using the DCU, Matrikon Alarm Manager and continue to be refined in order to maximize the Matrikon Control Performance Monitor leading value of their process control resources and to improvements in production and reduction in personnel. downtime • The ability to benchmark sites against one On a larger scale, the results, experience and another in order to discover why some sites may best practices taken away from the Pilbara Iron be performing better than others. This allows monitoring project will inform the direction of Rio Rio Tinto to implement best practices across all Tinto’s Operational Technology Excellence (OTX) sites. initiative. This initiative is focused on refining • Significant reduction in numbers of nuisance common methodology for assessment of process alarms. For example, the Tom Price processing control assets, defining a tool set for this process, plant operation, the largest in the group, reports and undertaking improvement projects that will a 70% reduction in standing alarms, chattering provide quantified value to Rio Tinto’s worldwide alarms and alarm flooding. operations. • Development of best-practice operating and maintenance strategies based on sound engineering data made available by using the tools. About Rio Tinto Rio Tinto is a world leader in finding, mining and processing the earth’s mineral resources. The Group’s worldwide operations supply essential minerals and metals that help to meet global needs and contribute to improvements in living standards. Rio Tinto encourages strong local identities and has a devolved management philosophy, entrusting responsibility with accountability to the workplace. In 2006 Rio Tinto had underlying earnings of 7.338 billion US dollars with Iron Ore contributing some 29% to these earnings.

About Matrikon Matrikon Inc. is a publicly traded (TSX: Figure 4 – Typical Alarm Management Reports provided by MTK) software Matrikon™ Alarm Manager. company that enables operational excellence for the process industries. The Matrikon Suite of products addresses specific operational excellence challenges in the domains of Production Management, Asset Effectiveness and Operations Optimization. Typical applications range from connectivity to alarm management to downtime reduction to production accounting.

Figure 5 – Typical Control Asset Performance Management Reports provided by Matrikon™ Control Performance Monitor.

Toll Free: 1-877-MATRIKON (1-877-628-7456) Email: [email protected] Ph: 1-780-448-1010 Web: www.matrikon.com

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