Patent ID: 8275847

Claim:
A method of handling equipment failure alarms comprising the steps of: receiving an alarm from a transceiver coupled to a heavy vehicle, the heavy vehicle including at least one of a dozer, drill, haul truck, loader and shovel, said alarm indicating a state of at least one of a component and a system of the heavy vehicle, the state being defined by at least one of an alarm generator located on the at least one of a component and a system, an excavation record, a dump record, and an equipment status time, the alarm including an abnormal event identifier and at least one of an equipment identifier, a location, and an equipment operator identification; storing the received alarm in a database; evaluating whether a notification of the received alarm should be sent to a third party maintenance organization; when notification of the received alarm should be sent to a third party maintenance organization, sending an alarm packet describing the received alarm to the third party maintenance organization; determining that the alarm has not been snoozed by examining a status identifier of the alarm, wherein said status identifier indicates whether an alarm notification is temporarily suppressed; analyzing the alarm, by: identifying a minimum health factor for at least one of the component and system of the heavy vehicle, identifying an occurrence frequency of the alarm, determining whether the minimum health factor for the at least one of the component and system of the heavy vehicle has been violated, and using the determination of whether the minimum health factor has been violated and the occurrence frequency of the alarm to determine whether the alarm is to be snoozed; and when the alarm is not to be snoozed, displaying the alarm for action or information.