Contingency planning in a scheduling process

• US 20030050065A1
• Filed: 09/19/2002
• Published: 03/13/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 03/31/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Trimble MRM Ltd. (Trimble Inc.)
• Original Assignee: @Road Incorporated (Trimble Inc.)
• Inventors: Pothos, Dionisios, Alletson, Ian S, Laithwaite, Robert NW
• Granted Patent: US 7,082,605 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/445
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management

Abstract

Tasks m such as repair jobs on a telecommunications system, that are to be performed by a plurality of resources such as field engineers (E), at different locations in a geographical area (2), are scheduled by means of a scheduler (10) at a work manager server (5). The scheduler provides schedule data (11) corresponding to schedules of the tasks that individual ones of the resources are to carry out, from task data (4) concerning the tasks to be carried out and resource data (6) concerning characteristics of resources available to carry out the tasks over a given period. The scheduled tasks are provided with associated contingency values (C) which are each computed as a function of the difference between the time that a task is scheduled to start and the latest start time that is feasible for the task . The schedule data (11) is downloaded to a workstation (7). The downloaded data is displayed on a Gantt Chart and the task blocks on the display are colour coded according to their contingency values (C) to give a visual indication of their values.

Claims

1. A method of scheduling tasks to be performed by means of a plurality of resources, comprising:

providing schedule data (26, 42-45) corresponding to schedules of the tasks (11) that individual ones of the resources are to carry out, prepared from task data (4) concerning the tasks to be carried out and resource data (6) concerning characteristics of resources available to carry out the tasks over a given period, together with contingency values (C) associated with the scheduled tasks for the individual resources.

2. A method according to claim 1 including displaying the schedule data so that scheduled tasks for the resources are shown individually with an associated visual indication of their contingency values.

3. A method according to claim 2 wherein the scheduled tasks are displayed on a Gantt chart (48) with distinctive colours as a function of their contingency values.

4. A method according to any preceding claim wherein the schedule data relates to tasks to be performed on a telecommunications system and the resource data relates to field engineers to perform the tasks.

5. A method according to any preceding claim wherein the contingency values are each computed as a function of the difference between the time that a task is scheduled to start and the latest start time that is feasible for the task.

6. A program to be run on a computer to perform a method as claimed in any preceding claim.

7. Computer software to be run on data processing apparatus for use in scheduling tasks to be performed by a plurality of resources, the software including program instructions to produce schedule data (26, 42-45) corresponding to schedules of the tasks (11) that individual ones of the resources are to carry out, the schedule data having been prepared from task data (4) concerning the tasks to be carried out and resource data (6) concerning characteristics of resources available to carry out the tasks over a given period, and to produce with contingency values (C) associated with the scheduled tasks for the individual engineers.