Improving visibility across hazardous assets in a coal handling preparation plant

At a Central Queensland coal mine, reliability teams were looking for a safer and more proactive way to monitor critical assets operating within the Coal Handling Preparation Plant.

Among the assets requiring closer attention were multiple desliming screens operating in hazardous conditions exposed to suspended coal dust. Accessing these assets for routine inspection often required personnel to enter difficult operating environments, creating additional safety considerations while still limiting visibility into developing mechanical issues.

Like many sites operating under production pressure, the challenge wasn’t simply detecting failures once they occurred. It was identifying abnormal behaviour early enough to intervene before it escalated into operational disruption.

To improve visibility across these assets, the site deployed MOVUS’s FitMachine sensors and monitoring platform as part of a broader initiative to strengthen asset awareness and reduce reliance on reactive maintenance practices.

Building a clearer picture of asset behaviour

Following deployment, the MOVUS Platform began continuously analysing vibration and operational behaviour across the monitored screens, building a clearer understanding of what normal operating conditions looked like over time.

Several month into monitoring, the system identified abnormal changes developing on one of the desliming screens.

Vibration trends, acoustics, and RMS values had all begun escalating beyond expected operating behaviours. While the asset remained operational, the change suggested deterioration was developing within the machine. Importantly, the issue was identified before the screen reached a critical failure point.

Rather than discovering the problem during a reactive breakdown event, the site had time to assess the severity of the issue, engage the appropriate maintenance response, and plan intervention in a controlled manner. This created a very different operational outcome.

Enabling earlier and safer intervention

With earlier visibility into the asset’s condition, the maintenance team was able to schedule repairs during planned downtime rather than responding under production pressure.

The proactive intervention reduced the likelihood of an unexpected failure event while also limiting unnecessary exposure for personnel working around hazardous operating areas.

For the site, the value extended beyond fault detection itself. The deployment improved confidence in maintenance planning, strengthened operational visibility across difficult-to-access assets, and helped shift decision-making away from reactive response and toward earlier intervention.