JP3646666B2 - Portable terminal and maintenance system - Google Patents

Description

[0001]
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is used, for example, when a service person having a portable terminal moves to a place (hereinafter referred to as “site”) where a device to be maintained exists and performs maintenance.
[0002]
[Prior art]
FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram showing an aspect of a conventional maintenance system. Maintenance for the device 12 _i used by the customer 10 _i (i = 1 to n), for example, a repair request 11 _i of the air conditioner is received at the service reception 20. Then, based on the request 11 _i received at the service reception 20, the service station 30 analyzes the maintenance content, for example, parts and techniques necessary for repair. Further, who is selected as a service person, how to arrange parts, and arrangement of parts are also determined by the service station 30.
[0003]
The service station 30 distributes the name of the device 12 _i to be maintained, the location of the site 1 _i , and an excerpt of technical data necessary for maintenance to the selected service person as service cards 31 _{1 to} 31 _n . Then, if necessary, the service person carries the arranged parts 32 and visits the site based on the service cards 31 _{1 to} 31 _n to perform equipment maintenance. The white arrow in the figure indicates the movement of the service person.
[0004]
[Problems to be solved by the invention]
However, in order to expedite maintenance, the service card is not distributed to the service person every time a maintenance request is issued, but the service person who has already worked outside the office is contacted by communication, and the person goes directly to the site. It is desirable.
[0005]
However, the amount of data required to send technical data necessary for maintenance is relatively small, although the amount of data required to send the local location and the name of the equipment to a service person who is already on duty is relatively small. Is relatively large and undesirable from the viewpoint of communication costs.
[0006]
The present invention has been made in view of such circumstances, and relates to a technique for providing maintenance by reducing communication costs while speeding up maintenance.
[0007]
[Means for Solving the Problems]
A first aspect of the present invention relates to a portable terminal (60) that can be carried, a database (63) that is used for maintenance of a plurality of devices (12 _i ) and stores maintenance information; A first function (61) for receiving a maintenance command (43) including device specifying information for specifying a device to be maintained and position specifying information indicating the location of the device specified by the device specifying information; And a second function (62) for reading out the maintenance information about the device specified by the device specifying information from the database.
[0008]
A second aspect of the present invention is the portable terminal according to the first aspect, wherein the maintenance information is retrieved from the database based on the device specified by the device specifying information. (64) is further provided.
[0009]
A third aspect of the present invention is the portable terminal according to any one of the first and second aspects, wherein the maintenance instruction is for the device specified by the device specifying information. And an index for the maintenance information to be read from the database.
[0010]
A fourth aspect of the present invention is the portable terminal according to any one of the first to third aspects, wherein the database can be updated from the outside.
[0011]
A fifth aspect of the present invention is a maintenance system including a fixed station (40) and a portable terminal (60). The fixed station inputs device specifying information for specifying a device (12 _i ) to be maintained, and position specifying information indicating the location (1 _i ) of the device specified by the device specifying information, A maintenance command (43) including the device specifying information and the position specifying information is transmitted. The portable terminal has a database (63) storing maintenance information used for maintenance of a plurality of devices, a first function (61) for receiving the maintenance command, and the device specified by the device specifying information. It has a second function (62) for reading out the maintenance information about the device and is portable.
[0012]
According to a sixth aspect of the present invention, there is provided the maintenance system according to the fifth aspect, wherein the portable terminal obtains the maintenance information from the database based on the device specified by the device specifying information. A third function (64) for searching is further provided.
[0013]
According to a seventh aspect of the present invention, the maintenance system according to any one of the fifth and sixth aspects, wherein the maintenance command is for the device specified by the device specifying information. It further includes an index for the maintenance information to be read from the database.
[0014]
According to an eighth aspect of the present invention, there is provided the maintenance system according to any one of the fifth to seventh aspects, wherein the database can be updated from the outside.
[0015]
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram showing an aspect of a maintenance system according to the present invention. The contact center 40 receives a request 11 _i for maintenance of the equipment 12 _i used by the customer 10 _i at the site 1 _i , for example, failure repair of the air conditioner. In the contact center 40, a maintenance analysis function 41 illustrated as a block is executed for convenience. By executing the maintenance analysis function 41, parts necessary for maintenance, necessary techniques, names of equipment for maintenance, and site positions are organized and grasped.
[0016]
First, in the repair request 11 _i , the customer 10 _i obtains information for obtaining a failure mode or the names of the components of the device 12 _i . An example of information for obtaining a failure mode is an error message. As long as the specific error message to the device 12 _i, even without the name of the components of the apparatus 12 _i, it is possible to specify a device 12 _i.
[0017]
The database 42 is used in the contact center 40 in identifying the failure mode or further device 12 _i from the error message. The database 42 stores various information related to maintenance on a plurality of devices. Based on the error message, the database 42 can obtain maintenance information indicating a necessary part 40a and a technique 40b such as a part replacement method and a work for narrowing down a failure part.
[0018]
Even if only information about some of the components of the device 12 _i can be obtained from the customer 10 _i, the device name 40 c of the failure location can be searched by the database 42. The construction of the database 42 is realized by adopting, for example, a known relational database technology.
[0019]
The contact center 40 transmits a maintenance command 43 to the portable terminal 60 via the communication network 5. The portable terminal 60 can be carried by a service person and includes a transmission / reception unit 61 that receives a maintenance command 43. That is, it can be understood that the contact center 40 functions as a fixed station and is a component of the maintenance system together with the portable terminal 60.
[0020]
The maintenance command 43 includes device specifying information for specifying the device 12 _i to be maintained, for example, the device name 40c, and location specifying information indicating the location of the specified device, that is, the location of the site 1 _i , for example, the location of the site. 40d.
[0021]
The portable terminal 60 also includes a display / operation unit 62 and a database 63. By operating the display / operation unit 62, the maintenance information for the identified device is read from the database 63. The maintenance information is also displayed on the display / operation unit 62. The display / operation unit 62 may employ, for example, a touch panel type display device, or may be provided in the portable terminal 60 separately into a part having a display function and a part having an operation function.
[0022]
FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing the flow of the above procedure. In step S1, the device and the failure content are specified based on information from the customer 10 _i . This is performed at the contact center 40. In step S2, the maintenance command 43 is exchanged. Specifically, a maintenance command 43 is given from the contact center 40 to the transmission / reception unit 61 of the portable terminal 60. In step S3, maintenance information is acquired from the database 63. This is executed in the portable terminal 60.
[0023]
As described above, the maintenance information indicating techniques such as the part replacement method and the work for narrowing down the failure location is provided in the portable terminal 60 as the database 63 in advance. Therefore, as the maintenance command 43 transmitted from the contact center 40 to the portable terminal 60, a small amount of information such as device specifying information and position specifying information is sufficient. That is, while maintaining communication costs, a service person who is out of work can be made aware of the maintenance information, and maintenance can be performed quickly.
[0024]
In order to obtain the maintenance information from the database 63, the contact center 40 may perform the same processing as that obtained from the database 42. In this case, as shown in FIG. 3, the portable terminal 60 needs to include a search unit 64. The search unit 64 searches the database 63 for maintenance information regarding the device 12 _i specified by the maintenance command 43 based on an operation on the display / operation unit 62.
[0025]
Of course, since the maintenance information has already been searched in the contact center 40, the same information may be acquired from the database 63 by the portable terminal 60. For this purpose, it is desirable that indexes corresponding to each other are added to the maintenance information in the databases 42 and 63. The maintenance command 43 is preferably exchanged with the index. Thereby, the portable terminal 60 does not necessarily include the search unit 64, and the display / operation unit 62 can directly acquire the maintenance information from the database 63 based on the index. The amount of information in the index can be small.
[0026]
In order for the portable terminal 60 to acquire maintenance information from the database 63 via such an index, it is desirable that the databases 42 and 63 store the same contents. Accordingly, it is desirable that the maintenance information updated for the database 42 is also updated in the database 63 at least when the maintenance information is acquired.
[0027]
FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing maintenance information update processing. Steps S31 to S34 can all be executed in step S3 of FIG. In step S31, an index is extracted from the maintenance command 43 by the display / operation unit 62, for example. In step S32, it is confirmed whether or not the maintenance information corresponding to the index exists in the database 63. If it exists, the process proceeds to step S34, and maintenance information corresponding to the index is acquired from the database 63. If the maintenance information corresponding to the index extracted from the maintenance command 43 does not exist in the database 63, the process proceeds to step S34 through the process of step S33.
[0028]
In step S33, the database 63 is updated by communication. This is realized by transmitting an update request from the portable terminal 60 to the contact center 40, for example, by the transmission / reception unit 61, and receiving maintenance information corresponding to the already extracted index, that is, updated maintenance information from the contact center 40. can do.
[0029]
The contact center 40 arranges the parts 32 for the necessary parts 40a. However, the above arrangement is not necessary when a service person who is out of the office already carries the necessary part 40a, or when the part is not necessary for maintenance. In FIG. 1, the movement of the service person is indicated by a white arrow. However, when it is not necessary to arrange parts, it is possible to go straight from the outside office to the site 1 _i specified by the maintenance command 43.
[0030]
As described above, according to the present invention, it is possible to perform quick maintenance while reducing the amount of information transmitted to the portable terminal 60 carried by a service person who is out of work.
[0031]
【The invention's effect】
As described above, according to the present invention, since the database is preliminarily provided in the portable terminal, the portable terminal can be used with a smaller amount of information than when maintenance information about the specified device is transmitted to the portable terminal. This maintenance information can be made known to the service person carrying the type terminal.
[Brief description of the drawings]
FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram showing an aspect of a maintenance system according to the present invention.
FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing a procedure flow of the present invention.
3 is a diagram showing another configuration of the portable terminal 60. FIG.
FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing a maintenance information update process.
FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram showing an aspect of a conventional maintenance system.
[Explanation of symbols]
40 Contact Center 43 Maintenance Command 60 Portable Terminal 61 Transmitter / Receiver 62 Display / Operation Unit 63 Database 64 Search Unit

Claims (8)

A database (63) used for maintenance of a plurality of devices (12 _i ) and storing maintenance information;
A first function for receiving a maintenance command (43) including device specifying information for specifying a device to be maintained and position specifying information indicating the location (1 _i ) of the device specified by the device specifying information (61)
A portable terminal (60) comprising a second function (62) for reading out the maintenance information about the device specified by the device specifying information from the database. A third function (64) for retrieving the maintenance information from the database based on the device specified by the device specifying information.
The portable terminal according to claim 1, further comprising: The portable terminal according to claim 1, wherein the maintenance command further includes an index for the maintenance information to be read from the database for the device specified by the device specifying information. . The portable terminal according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the database can be updated from the outside. The device specifying information for specifying the device (12 _i ) to be maintained and the position specifying information indicating the location (1 _i ) of the device specified by the device specifying information are input, and the device specifying information and A fixed station (40) for transmitting a maintenance command (43) including the position specifying information;
A database (63) in which maintenance information used for maintenance for a plurality of devices is stored, a first function (61) for receiving the maintenance command, and the maintenance information for the devices specified by the device specifying information A maintenance system comprising a portable terminal (60) that has a second function (62) for reading out and is portable. The maintenance system according to claim 5, wherein the portable terminal further includes a third function (64) for retrieving the maintenance information from the database based on the device specified by the device specifying information. The maintenance system according to claim 5, wherein the maintenance command further includes an index for the maintenance information to be read from the database for the device specified by the device specifying information. The maintenance system according to claim 5, wherein the database can be updated from the outside.

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