JPH08249392A - Visiting scheduler and visiting schedule method - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To automatically call a visiting destination to confirm whether or not a person to be visited is at home by automatically setting the parcel delivery service or visiting work so that the travel distance or time from a center becomes minimum. CONSTITUTION: Visiting destination data (address, name, and telephone number) of all articles to be delivered are inputted to a recording medium 1 first. When a driver inserts this recording medium 1 into a portable computer provided by a driver's seat, a visiting schedule setting device 2 automatically sets the visiting order and displays only the necessary number of articles on a display device 3. An automatic telephone confirmation device 4 automatically telephones a visiting destination before visiting it and judges whether or not a person to be visited is at home from response. When the person is not at home, the visit is pastponed. The driver only drives according to the instruction of the display device 3.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a visit scheduler and a scheduling method for automatically setting the order of visits so as to improve the visit efficiency when delivering goods or visiting a plurality of visits. Is.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In logistics business or home delivery business, when a large number of goods (parcels) are delivered from a collection / delivery center to each customer, a delivery slip is arranged in advance and the driver of the vehicle, who is the delivery person, makes a delivery order. Was set at his own discretion. Generally, the delivery order is set from the near side to the far side from the collection / delivery center, or in the reverse order of this direction.

Conventionally, the delivery person confirms the address written on the delivery slip, and each person decides the delivery order based on his experience so far in consideration of road conditions and the like. When the goods are delivered in this order, if the delivery destination is absent or there is no agent for provisional receipt, the delivery of the goods is postponed and the delivery slip is also sent to the end. .

Further, even at a service center that provides a business trip service such as repair of goods, when a slip describing the customer's address, name, purpose of visit, etc. is issued, a serviceman looks at these slips and procures parts. And confirmed the places visited and set the order of visits.

[0005]

Generally, in the home delivery business, in principle, the delivery is handed to the delivery destination, and when all deliverable items have been delivered, there is a time margin for the undeliverable items. If so, I was trying to deliver it again that day. However, in today's general households, double-income households are increasing and the number of households without homes is increasing. With the recent spread of mail-order, home delivery to single persons is also increasing.
However, those people have a high absent rate during the daytime on weekdays, which is a big problem in the home delivery business, especially when paying by the recipient.

[0006] In the home delivery service, an automatic telephone or a mobile phone may be mounted on a transport vehicle to check the customer each time whether or not he / she is at home. In this case, if the driver of the vehicle makes a phone call while the vehicle is moving, driving is neglected and the other party may not respond. Especially if the person answering the call does not immediately reply to the content of the call on this side,
Call time will be longer than expected. In addition, the call charges of mobile phones are higher than those of conventional stationary phones, and such communication costs cannot be ignored in comparison with the charges per bag. On the other hand, an answering machine locker that automatically stores delivered luggage is also found in some luxury apartments, but the installation rate is extremely low when viewed from the delivery area.

The present invention has been made in view of such conventional problems, and automatically sets the delivery order of articles or the order of visits to customers so that the visit route and time are the shortest. It is an object of the present invention to realize a visit scheduler and a visit scheduling method that can be performed.

[0008]

According to the invention of claim 1 of the present application, a recording medium for holding at least the name, address and telephone number of a visited place as visited data, and the visited data held in the storage medium are read out. , A visit order setting means for setting the visit order so that the cumulative time from the departure point to all the visited destinations is minimized, a display means for displaying the visit order set by the visit order setting means, and making a wireless call The mobile telephone means and the mobile telephone means automatically call the visited person in the order set by the visit order setting means, detect whether or not there is an absence by a calling signal or a reply signal, and output the result to the display means. And an automatic telephone confirmation means.

According to the invention of claim 2 of the present application, a recording medium for holding at least the name, address, and telephone number of the delivery destination of the article as delivery destination data, and the delivery destination data retained in the storage medium are read out, and from the starting point Visit order setting means for setting the delivery order of goods so that the cumulative time to reach all the delivery destinations is minimized, display means for displaying the delivery order set by the visit order setting means, and a mobile telephone for making a wireless call. Means and mobile telephone means to automatically call the delivery destination in the order set by the visiting order setting means, detect whether or not there is an absence by a call signal or a reply signal, and output the result to the display means. The confirmation means is provided.

According to the invention of claim 3 of the present application, at least the name, address, and telephone number of the visited place are registered in the recording medium as the visited data, the visited data registered in the storage medium is read out, and all the data from the departure point are read. Set the visit order by the visit order setting means so that the cumulative time to reach the destination is minimized,
The visit order set by the visit order setting means is displayed on the display means, and an automatic call is made to the destination in the order set by the visit order setting means by using the mobile telephone means. It is characterized in that it is detected by a signal and the result is output to the display means.

[0011]

According to the present invention having such characteristics, at least the name, address and telephone number of the visited place are recorded in the recording medium as the visited data. The visit order setting means reads out the visit destination data recorded in the storage medium and sets the visit order so that the cumulative time from the departure point to all the visit destinations is minimized. Then, the visit order set by the visit order setting means is displayed on the display means. Immediately before the visit, an automatic call is made to the visited destination using the mobile telephone means in the order set by the visit order setting means. Then, the absence or presence is detected by the calling signal or the reply signal, and the result is output to the display means. In this way, the visitor can make a highly efficient visit by visiting the display of the display means.

[0012]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS A visit scheduler according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the overall configuration of the visit scheduler of this embodiment.
As shown in the figure, the visit scheduler includes a storage medium 1, a visit schedule setting device 2 which is a visit order setting device, a display device 3, an automatic telephone confirmation device 4, and a mobile phone 5 which is a mobile telephone device. .

FIG. 2 shows a host computer H used in this embodiment. The host computer H is installed in the collection / delivery center and inputs the data of the delivery slip into the recording medium 1 such as a flexible disk. As the data of the delivery slip, the article management code in the physical distribution system, the name of the delivery destination, the address, the telephone number, the designated delivery date and time, the handling precautions, the contact information of the sender, the packaging, etc. can be considered. The article management code is generally input by a bar code reader or the like. In this embodiment, at least the name of the delivery destination,
The address and the telephone number must be input to the recording medium 1 in advance via the host computer H.

The input device of the host computer H is composed of a keyboard and a panel switch in which the name of the municipality is entered. When the input device is a keyboard, a list of all addresses existing in the area may be displayed in Chinese characters without inputting the address each time, and this code may be selected by the keyboard.

On the other hand, the portable computer S shown in FIG.
Is mounted on each vehicle, and a notebook personal computer is used, for example. As shown in FIG. 1, the portable computer S is provided with a visit schedule setting device 2, a display device 3, and an automatic telephone confirmation device 4 as its signal processing block. The visit schedule setting device 2 includes a storage medium reading device 2a, a CPU 2b, and a RAM.
2c, ROM 2d, and display driver 2e, which is a visit order setting means for setting the visit order so as to minimize the time to visit all the visited places.

The data in the recording medium 1 is stored in the storage medium reading device 2
It is stored in the RAM 2c via a and the CPU 2b. RA
M2c is at least the name of the delivery destination of the item to be delivered on the same day,
It is a temporary storage memory that stores addresses and telephone numbers. R
The OM 2d is a non-volatile memory that stores a program for setting a delivery order by referring to a plurality of delivery destination data stored in the RAM 2c. This memory is composed of, for example, a read-only memory, but may be a rewritable memory if the delivery order setting method is different for each delivery area.

The program in the ROM 2d is created in advance by the host computer H or the like of the collection / delivery center. As an example, the method of setting the delivery order is as follows: A: same city, B: same town, C: same street, D: same address, E: same number, F: same building. If there are a plurality of city names and town names, they can be rearranged in the order of route, distance or arrival time from the collection and delivery center.

The CPU 2b operates according to the program stored in the ROM 2d, and the delivery destination names rearranged here are displayed on the display device 3 via the display driver 2e. The display device 3 displays the delivery destination data in order of delivery from the top or bottom of the display screen. The display in this case may be only one customer to be delivered, or may be displayed collectively.

The automatic telephone confirmation device 4 includes a CPU 4a and a ROM
4a and a voice synthesis IC 4c. The automatic telephone confirmation device 4 is a device for making an automatic telephone when the telephone number of the delivery destination is given from the CPU 2b. The ROM 4b stores an automatic telephone confirmation program, and the CPU 4a
Operates the speech synthesis IC 4c in accordance with the prescribed order registered in the ROM 4b. CPUs 2b, 4a, ROM
2d and 4b may be composed of a one-chip microcomputer. The mobile phone 5 is a so-called car phone or a portable mobile phone, and is connected to the automatic phone confirmation device 4.

The operation of the visit scheduler thus configured will be described with reference to FIGS. The driver goes to the collection and delivery center and first loads a large number of packages to be delivered to his own vehicle. For this mounting, for example, luggage accumulated in a collection / delivery center by a large vehicle is sorted and mounted by an automatic sorting device. Therefore, the driver in charge of the local flight can take in the luggage in the designated area only by parking the vehicle at the designated position.

Next, the driver brings the delivered delivery slip to the host computer H shown in FIG. 2 and inputs the delivery destination data. When the necessary data is entered from the keyboard in this way, the data of the luggage handled by the driver is written in the recording medium 1. Anyone in the collection / delivery center may perform this work.

When the delivery destination data is stored, these data are stored for a long period of time. When looking at the delivery destination on a yearly basis in a home delivery service, packages are often delivered to the same delivery destination. Therefore, if you first enter the name, address, and phone number of the delivery destination and memorize these data, if a package arrives at the same delivery destination on another day,
Only by inputting a telephone number into the host computer H, the name and address can be read and copied to the recording medium 1.

When it is confirmed that the vehicle is loaded with luggage, the driver gets on the vehicle. FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing a state near the driver's seat of the vehicle. As shown in the figure, the portable computer S is installed in front of or in the side of the driver's seat. When the recording medium 1 into which the delivery destination data has been input is inserted into the visit schedule setting device 2 of FIG. 1, the CPU 2b operates and a preinstalled program causes the display device 3 to display as many delivery destinations as necessary. As shown in the display screen of FIG. 3, No. 1 is the name and address of A's house No. 2: Name and address of B's house No. 3: Name and address of C's house No. 4: Name and address of D's house It

Next, when the driver gives an instruction to send a telephone call, the automatic telephone confirmation device 4 operates as shown in FIG.
The telephone number of the first house A is read from the AM 2c, and the mobile phone 5 automatically calls this house. At this time, when the receiver of the other party's telephone is picked up, the CPU 4a causes the voice synthesis IC 4
Extract the required message from c. The message in this case is, for example, "I will ask you to deliver the package in about 10 minutes. If you do not mind, press the # 1 button. You can not check this unless you are a push line. In this case also I will ask." Becomes (Fig. 4 (b))

At this time, when the mobile phone 5 receives # 1,
The CPU 2b displays "present" on the display device 3 or "OK" as shown in FIG. The driver looks at the display and immediately goes to the house A. At the same time, when the driver instructs the next delivery destination, the automatic telephone confirmation device 4 automatically makes a call to the house B even if the driver is driving. In this way, the automatic telephone confirmation device 4 automatically makes a call during driving, so that the driver can work while paying attention to safe driving.

When the third delivery destination is absent, the mobile phone 5 does not receive # 1, so "absence" is displayed in the C home as shown in FIG. In this way, each line of the display is rolled up as the delivery is completed, and the delivery destination data is displayed in a required size on the display surface having a limited area.

When the delivery destination registered first is accessed and the delivery of the package to the home destination is completed, the undelivered customer is displayed again. In this case, if the driver gives an instruction, the telephone calls can be automatically made sequentially. Further, when the delivery work of the day is completed, if the recording medium 1 is brought back to the delivery center and the data is input to the host computer H, the delivery result totaling work can be automatically performed.

Although the present embodiment describes the scheduling device and the scheduling method for delivering the goods, it is not limited to the delivery of the goods, but various visits for sequentially visiting customers to provide repair and consultation services. It goes without saying that it can also be used.

[0029]

As described in detail above, according to the present invention, the shortest visit schedule is automatically set when the visit destination data is input because the visit order setting means is provided. Therefore, the traveling distance or traveling time of the transport vehicle is shortened, and more visiting tasks can be performed in one day. Further, by providing the automatic telephone confirmation means, it is possible to easily confirm the absence or non-visit of the visited place, and the re-schedule at that time can be automatically set.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is an overall configuration diagram of a visit scheduler according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram of a host computer provided in a collection and delivery center.

FIG. 3 is an external view of a visit scheduler installed near a driver's seat of a transport vehicle.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram showing an operation of a visit scheduler.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 recording medium 2 visiting schedule setting device 2a recording medium reading device 2b, 4a CPU 2c RAM 2d, 4b ROM 2e display driver 3 display device 4 automatic telephone confirmation device 4c voice synthesis IC 5 mobile phone H host computer S portable computer

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A recording medium that holds at least the name, address, and telephone number of the visited place as visited data, and the accumulated time from the departure point to all the visited places by reading out the visited data stored in the storage medium. , Visit order setting means for setting the visit order so as to be minimum, display means for displaying the visit order set by the visit order setting means, mobile telephone means for making a wireless call, and the mobile telephone means, An automatic telephone confirmation means for automatically calling the visited person in the order set by the visiting order setting means, detecting whether or not the person is absent by a calling signal or a reply signal, and outputting the result to the display means. A visit scheduler characterized by: 2. At least the name, address of the delivery destination of the goods,
A recording medium that stores a telephone number as delivery destination data, and a visit that reads the delivery destination data stored in the storage medium and sets the delivery order of goods so that the cumulative time from the departure point to all delivery destinations is minimized. Order setting means, display means for displaying the delivery order set by the visiting order setting means, mobile telephone means for making a wireless call, and the mobile telephone means in the order set by the visiting order setting means. A visit scheduler, comprising: an automatic telephone confirmation means for making an automatic call to a delivery destination, detecting whether or not the person is absent by a calling signal or a reply signal, and outputting the result to the display means. 3. Cumulative time from the departure point to all the visited destinations, at least the name, address, and telephone number of the visited destination are registered in the recording medium as the visited data, and the visited data registered in the storage medium is read out. The visit order is set by the visit order setting means so as to be the minimum, the visit order set by the visit order setting means is displayed on the display means, and the mobile telephone is called to the destination in the order set by the visit order setting means. A method of visiting schedules, characterized in that an automatic call is made using the means, the absence or presence is detected by a calling signal or a reply signal, and the result is output to the display means.