ON-SITE SYSTEM BUILDING SUPPORT TOOL

• US 20100138758A1
• Filed: 03/24/2008
• Published: 06/03/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 05/21/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hitachi Construction Machinery Company Limited (Hitachi, Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Hitachi Construction Machinery Company Limited (Hitachi, Ltd.)
• Inventors: Kusaki, Takami, Takishita, Yoshihiko, Mizumori, Takashi
• Granted Patent: US 8,196,054 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/763
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: Y02P 90/84 Greenhouse gas [GHG] management systems

Abstract

An on-site system building support tool for assisting a user in building an on-site system by displaying a layout creation screen having an icon area for displaying icons, each of which represents any of various kinds of machines that can be used, and a canvas area in which a virtual system is built. The icons are displayed in the canvas area and connected to each other through an association. A model setting screen is used to display the icons, and on the basis of setting conditions displayed on the model setting screen, a load on the virtual system built on the canvas area is calculated and displayed which applies to the environment. This enables checking of an environmental load on the basis of various kinds of conditions of the site.

Claims

1. An on-site system building support tool for building an on-site system on a screen of a display unit to simulate the on-site system, the on-site system including a plurality of machines, each of which is self-propelled, travelable, or transportable, and the on-site system processing an object to be processed in situ where the object to be processed has been produced,

wherein computing means performs the steps of:

displaying a layout creation screen on the display unit, the layout creation screen including;

an icon area for displaying a plurality of icons, each of which represents, in a discriminable manner, any of various kinds of machines that can be used in the on-site system, or any of processes to be performed in the on-site system; and

a canvas area in which the on-site system is virtually built;

displaying, in the canvas area, an icon selected in the icon area according to an operation signal from an operation device based on GUI operation;

after the plurality of icons are positioned in the canvas area, displaying, in the canvas area, a mark indicating, in a discriminable manner, how each process which is associated with the plurality of icons selected in the canvas area is connected to a previous or next process of each process;

when an icon is selected and clicked in the canvas area, displaying, on the display unit, a model setting screen used to specify a model of a machine to be used in a process associated with the selected icon, and to specify the number of the machines, and a workload of the machine; and

on the basis of information about the number of machines corresponding to the model and the workload of the machine specified on the model setting screen and about fuel consumption provided beforehand, calculating a load which the on-site system virtually built on the canvas area applies to environment, and then displaying the result of the calculation on the display unit;

wherein;

a particular icon representing a machine or a process, which involves branching of flow of a processed object, has a plurality of ratio setting objects, each of which is used to specify a sorting ratio of the processed object;

the sorting ratios of the processed objects displayed in the plurality of sorting ratio objects are always 100% in total; and

when a sorting ratio displayed in any of the ratio setting objects is changed, sorting ratios displayed in the other ratio setting objects are also changed accordingly.

2. The on-site system building support tool according to claim 1,

wherein:

the computing means performs the step of, according to an operation signal from the operation device based on GUI operation, moving, in the canvas area, an icon positioned in the canvas area.

3. The on-site system building support tool according to claim 2,

wherein:

the computing means performs the step of updating the currently displayed mark, which is associated with the icon moved in the canvas area, in response to the move of the icon.

4. The on-site system building support tool according to claim 1,

wherein:

the mark is an association line that indicates, with an arrow, how each process which is associated with the plurality of icons selected in the canvas area is connected to a previous or next process of each process.

5. The on-site system building support tool according to claim 1,

wherein:

the GUI operation is drag-and-drop operation or copy-and-paste operation.

7. The on-site system building support tool according to claim 1,

wherein:

the load applied to environment is the amount of CO₂ emission calculated on the basis of the consumed quantity of fuel of each model specified on the model setting screen.

8. The on-site system building support tool according to claim 1,

wherein:

the model setting screen has an object used for displaying a machine-body information screen on which reference information about a model of a machine to be used can be viewed.

9. The on-site system building support tool according to claim 1,

wherein:

the icon area includes the icon that is associated with a sorting machine for sorting processed objects;

the icon that is associated with a feeding machine for supplying the sorting machine with an object to be processed; and

the icon that is associated with a transporting machine for transporting an object to be processed or a processed object.

10. The on-site system building support tool according to claim 2,

wherein:

the GUI operation is drag-and-drop operation or copy-and-paste operation.

6. (canceled)