JP2004227461A - Urgent customer supporting system - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To select a customer who owns an equipment machine capable of substituting for production, and who is able to carry out alternative production, and to make an ordering inquiry when it is judged that an equipment machine which has broken down is not early recoverable. <P>SOLUTION: When it is judged that it is impossible to carry out scheduled production due to the failure of any equipment machine in a system for supporting the customers of equipment machines, an alternative equipment machine is retrieved from the other customers, and the customer who is able to carry out alternative production is selected, and ordering inquiry information is transmitted to the selected customer. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2004,JPO&NCIPI

Description

[0001]
TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a customer support system using a database, and further to an emergency customer support system for backing up alternative production when it is determined that a customer's faulty equipment cannot be repaired early.
[0002]
[Prior art]
The conventional customer support system has a ledger file of a customer who is in a business relationship, a ledger file of machinery and equipment held by each customer, and when receiving failure information of equipment and machinery from a customer terminal, the customer information, To call out data such as equipment machine specification information, repair / modification information of the equipment machine, and solution data files for each type of failure, to identify the failure site to repair the failure early, and to determine the repair method. Information was provided.
[0003]
Therefore, it was effective to complete the repair early for failures that can be easily repaired.However, for failures that take a long time to repair, such as failure or breakage of main parts or main control systems, the repair is completed. Until that time, the equipment and machinery must be stopped, which hinders production planning.
[0004]
Meanwhile, as a customer support system, a system for repairing OA equipment such as a printer and managing consumables is known (for example, see Patent Document 1).
[0005]
However, since the OA equipment is a mass-produced product, the parts to be replaced have a large inventory in the event of a failure and can be restored in a few days. In addition, since it is relatively inexpensive, many users always use a plurality of OA devices, and even if one device breaks down, other devices can be used, so this is not fatal.
[0006]
On the other hand, production machines have many ordered products and are expensive, so the number of the equipment is small and the inventory of spare parts cannot be sufficiently secured. In the event of a failure, parts may have to be rebuilt, which can take months to recover, during which time production will stop. Production machines themselves are expensive and require a large installation area, so it is not possible to provide a sufficient number of facilities in preparation for failure.
[0007]
Also, only certain processes may be temporarily busy. In that case, the process becomes a bottleneck, and it becomes impossible to increase the production amount. If this situation continues, it is possible to increase the production equipment used in the process, but if it is considered temporary, it is not possible to increase the equipment and increase the production volume. Can not.
[0008]
[Patent Document 1]
JP 2001-250008 A (page 1)
[0009]
[Problems to be solved by the invention]
As mentioned above, when equipment equipment breaks down, if a failure that takes a long time to repair, such as a failure or breakage of a main part or main control system, the equipment machine must be stopped until the repair is completed, and the production plan must be stopped. There was a problem that caused trouble.
[0010]
Therefore, according to the present invention, when it is determined that a failed equipment machine cannot be repaired at an early stage, a customer who has an equipment machine capable of replacing production during that time and selects a customer capable of performing alternative production is selected to make an order inquiry. The purpose of the present invention is to provide an emergency customer support system.
[0011]
[Means for Solving the Problems]
The emergency customer support system of the present invention, when receiving machine failure information from a customer terminal, searches for a machine having the same or similar specification as the failed machine from customer-provided equipment machine information provided in advance to obtain a first machine. A first extraction unit for extracting the extraction information, and a first extraction information extracted by the first extraction unit are searched by a specified search condition, and a machine corresponding to the search condition is installed. And second extraction means for extracting second extraction information including customer information.
[0012]
BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION
Hereinafter, an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.
[0013]
FIG. 1 shows a system configuration having an emergency customer support system according to the present invention. That is, this system includes a customer support system 10, an emergency customer support system 20, and a customer information database 30. This system is connected to a plurality of customers 60 via a telephone line 40 and the Internet 50, which will be described in detail later.
[0014]
The customer information database 30 includes a customer ledger (file information) 31 having a business relationship, and a machine ledger (file information) 32 of machine equipment owned by each customer. The plurality of customers 60 are connected to the Internet 50 from a customer A, a personal computer or other terminal device (customer terminal) connected via the telephone line 40 using a telephone (customer terminal) not shown, for example. It has a customer B, a customer S1, a customer S2, and a customer S3 to be connected.
[0015]
The customer support system 10 receives the equipment failure information 11 obtained from the customer via the telephone line 40 or receives the equipment failure information 11 transmitted by e-mail via the Internet 50.
[0016]
When the failure information 11 is received, the customer support system 10 transmits data such as customer information, specification information of the equipment machine, repair / modification information of the equipment machine, and a solution data file for each type of failure from the customer information database 30. A call is made to identify a failed part in order to repair the failure early, and to provide the customer or the customer terminal with information for determining a repair method.
[0017]
At this time, if the customer support system 10 determines that the early restoration cannot be performed, the customer support system 10 transmits the failure information 11 to the emergency customer support system 20.
[0018]
When receiving the failure information 11, the emergency customer support system 20 searches the customer information database 30, and lists the customers of the replacement equipment and sends order inquiry information 28, which will be described in detail later. Therefore, the emergency customer support system 20 has an order inquiry information transmission function.
[0019]
In addition, the customer support system 10, the emergency customer support system 20, and the customer information database 30 are configured by one personal computer or a plurality of personal computers.
[0020]
Next, in such a configuration, the functional operation of the emergency customer support system 20 will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.
[0021]
First, the emergency customer support system 20 creates a first search condition for designating a machine having the same or similar specification as the failed machine from the failure information 11 (step 21).
[0022]
The emergency customer support system 20 searches the machine ledger 32 of the customer information database 30 using this first search condition (first search) (step 22), and creates a first extraction file based on the result (step 22). Step 23).
[0023]
That is, by creating the first extraction file, a machine that can be replaced with the production by the failed machine is extracted.
[0024]
Further, the emergency customer support system 20 creates a second search condition for searching the first extracted file (Step 24). The second search condition includes an industry condition, a main business partner condition, a location condition, a quiet condition, and the like, and is created so that a customer who has installed a machine that meets a condition for backing up the production of the customer can be searched. .
[0025]
Then, the emergency customer support system 20 searches the customer ledger 31 of the customer information database 30 using the second search condition (second search) (step 25), and creates a second extraction file based on the result. (Step 26).
[0026]
Lastly, the emergency customer support system 20, when a candidate for a machine that can be backed up is determined based on the data of the second extraction file, sends the order inquiry information 28 by the order inquiry information transmission function to the customer who has installed the candidate machine. Is transmitted by e-mail via the Internet 50 (step 27). The inquiry information 28 may be implemented by other means such as a telephone.
[0027]
In this way, an alternative production destination for production by the failed machine is secured and ordered.
[0028]
The above-mentioned system is highly necessary as a support system for production equipment used in all industries, and performs production of metal working machines, die casting machines, injection molding machines, extrusion molding machines, etc., especially just-in-time. This is effective as a production support system for customers who limit their inventory to the minimum required.
[0029]
Next, a specific example in the above-described system will be described.
[0030]
The first search condition in step 21 is that the same machine including the option is set to 10 points, and the difference between the options is reduced. Machines of the same type, but differing in size and handling range of work, will greatly deduct points.
[0031]
Here, the range of the work to be handled is, for a machine tool, an operating range of a tool and a size of a work that can be chucked, and for an injection molding machine, an injection pressure and a size of a mold to be mounted. Adjust the deductions to get a completely different machine to "0".
[0032]
In the second search condition in step 24, the confidentiality, the experience of the product to be manufactured, and the like are evaluated for the type of business condition and the condition of the main customer. In terms of industry conditions, the same industry has more knowledge and experience in products, and it is convenient to request production, but in the case of rivalry, there is a problem in terms of maintaining confidentiality. Therefore, the main business partner conditions are searched, and if there is a business relationship, there is not much problem regarding confidentiality. The supplier is selected in consideration of the degree of confidentiality of the product requested for production.
[0033]
Here, first, the relevance for each type of business is defined in advance as a coefficient ω. Assuming that the same industry is "1" and those with little relevance are "0.1", the numerical value during this period is determined.
[0034]
For example, in the industry of “machinery”, the coefficient ω is determined such that “0.8” is for automobile, “0.5” is for “chemical”, and “0.2” is for “food”.
[0035]
As the main business partner conditions, customer companies are grouped into companies such as A, B, C,. Independent companies that do not belong anywhere are classified as "Z".
[0036]
For example, in the group A, points from “10” to “1” are given according to the strength of the capital relationship and the size of the transaction volume. This numerical value is referred to as “γ”. A company with “γ” out of 10 indicates a core company of the group. Companies that have capital relationships or transactions with multiple company groups are given points for each.
[0037]
Subsequently, a coefficient λ indicating the degree of intimacy of each group is numerically determined from “−1” to “1”.
[0038]
For example, the coefficient λ is “−1” when the group A and the group B have a strong rivalry, the coefficient λ is “1” when the group is very close, and the coefficient λ is “0” when there is almost no relation. There is a decimal point between these values, indicating the strength of the relationship.
[0039]
The emergency customer support system 20 calculates “ω × λ × γ”, and extracts “ω × λ × γ” from the one with the larger numerical value. There are a plurality of “λ × γ” customers belonging to a plurality of groups. In this case, the one with the larger absolute value of “λ × γ” is valid.
[0040]
In particular, when the experience of a customer who requests production is required, or when security is to be emphasized, these can be evaluated separately without combining them, and the item can be ordered (inquired) to a higher-level customer.
[0041]
Further, under local conditions, if the location of the customer who requests production is far from the location of the customer who requests production, it takes time and cost for transportation. Numbers such as 10 points for the same municipalities, 9 points for the adjacent municipalities, 8 points for the same prefecture, 7 points for the adjacent prefectures, and 6 points for the same region, and request inquiries in descending order of the numerical values.
[0042]
The information on the machine operation is received in advance from the customer's terminal device by the customer. If the control device of the production machine and the terminal device on the customer side are connected by a network (the Internet 50 or the like), the information on the hustle and bush can be automatically input from the operation status of the machine.
[0043]
If there is no terminal device on the customer side, the customer directly asks the customer by telephone or the like to obtain information on quietness. The busy information represents the state from no work at all to full production by numerical values of "0" to "10", and the order of order inquiries is given in order from the smallest to the highest.
[0044]
In the above-described embodiment, the system responds to an emergency such as a failure. However, the system can be used as a disaster or delay in a production plan, production reinforcement of a part of the process, and also as a normal supplier search system. .
[0045]
As described above, according to the embodiment of the present invention, the machine failure information input from the information from the customer is compared with the ledger file information of the equipment machine created for each customer, and the same or similar specification as the failed machine is used. The first extracted file was created by searching for the machine of the above, and the first extracted file was further transmitted with information on the type of business or major business partner of the customer who transmitted the failure information of the machine, or with the failure information of the machine. Searching based on the distance from the customer's location and the information on the availability of machines, create a second extraction file listing the applicable machines, and inquire about a backup production order based on the data of the created second extraction file. By doing so, it is possible to provide emergency support when a customer's machine breaks down.
[0046]
The invention of the present application is not limited to the above embodiments, and various modifications can be made in the implementation stage without departing from the scope of the invention. In addition, the embodiments may be implemented in appropriate combinations as much as possible, in which case the combined effects can be obtained. Furthermore, the above embodiments include inventions at various stages, and various inventions can be extracted by appropriately combining a plurality of disclosed constituent elements. For example, even if some components are deleted from all the components shown in the embodiment, (at least one of) the problems described in the column of the problem to be solved by the invention can be solved, and the effect of the invention can be solved. In the case where (at least one of) the effects described in (1) is obtained, a configuration from which this component is deleted can be extracted as an invention.
[0047]
【The invention's effect】
As described above in detail, according to the present invention, when it is determined that a failed equipment machine cannot be repaired at an early stage, a customer who has an equipment machine capable of replacing production during that time and can perform alternative production is selected. An emergency customer support system capable of making an order inquiry can be provided.
[Brief description of the drawings]
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an entire system including an emergency customer support system according to the present invention.
FIG. 2 is a flowchart for explaining the functional operation of the emergency customer support system.
[Explanation of symbols]
10 customer support system, 20 emergency customer support system, 30 customer information database, 31 customer ledger, 32 machine ledger, 40 telephone line, 50 internet, 60 customers.

Claims (6)

When receiving machine failure information from a customer terminal, a first extraction for searching for a machine having the same or similar specification as the failed machine from pre-provided customer-specific equipment machine information and extracting first extraction information Means,
The first extraction information extracted by the first extraction means is searched under specified search conditions, and second extraction information including information on customers who have installed machines corresponding to the search conditions is extracted. Second extraction means;
An emergency customer support system comprising: 2. The emergency customer support system according to claim 1, wherein the specified search condition is information on a business type or a main business partner of a customer who transmitted the machine failure information. 3. The emergency customer support system according to claim 1, wherein the specified search condition is a distance from a location of a customer who has transmitted the failure information of the machine. The emergency customer support system according to claim 2, wherein the specified search condition further includes information on machine operation. 5. The emergency customer support system according to claim 1, wherein second order information including the customer information extracted by the second extraction unit transmits order inquiry information for alternative production to the customer terminal. 6. The emergency customer support system according to claim 1, wherein the emergency customer support system is connected to a customer terminal via a communication line.

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