TASK MANAGEMENT IN A WORKFORCE ENVIRONMENT USING AN ACOUSTIC MAP CONSTRUCTED FROM AGGREGATED AUDIO

• US 20120150578A1
• Filed: 12/08/2010
• Published: 06/14/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 12/08/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Motorola Solutions, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Motorola Solutions, Inc.
• Inventors: Mangat, Pawitter, Collins, Timothy J., Lee, Young S.
• Granted Patent: US 8,706,540 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/7.13
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/00 Administration; Management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06311 Scheduling, planning or task assignment for a person or group
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/00 Commerce
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0241 Advertisements

Abstract

Incoming audio from mobile devices can be centrally processed, where a server can filter background noise in real time, such as by using an XOR function. Instead of discarding the filtered noise, however, it can be processed in parallel to dynamically construct an acoustic map of the environment. The acoustic map can be generated from an aggregation of sound data from multiple devices positioned in a geographic environment. The acoustic map can be linked to a configurable set of rules, conditions, and events, which can cause dynamic adjustments to be made to a workforce task management system. For example, employee availability can be assessed using the acoustic map and workforce tasks can be assigned based in part upon this availability.

Claims

1. A method for monitoring and managing a workforce in a geographic region comprising:

gathering audio from a plurality of different communication devices deployed throughout a geographic region within which a workforce performs a function, wherein the different communication devices comprise wireless devices for receiving and conveying sound, wherein said workforce comprises a plurality of employees that work within the geographic region and that utilize the different communication devices to communicate with each other;

aggregating the audio from the plurality of different communication devices to create an acoustic map of the geographic region comprising geographically plotted sound generating objects;

processing sound generated from at least one of the sound generated objects plotted on the acoustic map to determine a workforce relative event;

selecting among a set of a plurality of different employees positioned in the geographic region where the selection is based upon the workforce relative event determined from the at least one sound object;

assigning at least one task to the selected one of the different employees selected from the set; and

communicating the assigned task to the selected employee via one of the different communication devices.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the workforce relative event is one tracked by a task management system used by the workforce.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the assigned task is a time constrained task that is to be reactively performed within the geographic region in direct response to the workforce relative event.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein at least a portion of the sound generating objects are not able to be accurately discerned from input from any single one of the different communication devices but that are able to be discerned by aggregating the audio from the plurality of different communication devices.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

triangulating positions of each of the sound generating objects within the geographic region from three or more different communication devices, each obtaining audio at approximately the same time, where the audio includes a sound generated by the sound generating object for which a position is being determined.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

processing voice communications from a centralized processing system used by all of the different computing devices to reduce ambient sounds also referred to as noise within the voice communications exchanged among the employees.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

utilizing the ambient sounds filtered from the voice communications to determine the sound generating objects when aggregating the audio to create the acoustic map.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein at least a portion of the different communication devices are mobile two-way radio devices assigned to specific ones of the employees.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the different communication devices comprise wire-line devices having a fixed position within the geographic region, wherein the fixed position is known and used as a positional reference point within the geographic region when aggregating audio from the different communication devices.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the wire-line devices comprise intercom communication devices having a microphone and speaker.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the communication device to which the assigned task is communicated is a multi-modal communication device having at least one silent communication mode and at least one audible communication mode, said method further comprising:

determining whether the assigned task is to be communicated using the silent communication mode or the audible communication mode based upon the workforce relative event; and

communicating the assigned task via the communication device using the determined communication mode.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one of the sound generating objects is a human, wherein the audio comprises speech from the human, said method further comprising:

digitally processing the speech from the human utilizing a speaker identification and verification algorithm to determine an identity of the human, where the identity is otherwise unknown, wherein the workforce relative event is dependent upon the identity of the human as determined from the speaker identification and verification algorithm.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the audio comprises speech from at least one of the employees, said method comprising:

speech-to-text converting the speech to create text;

discerning meaning from the text;

selectively triggering an occurrence of a plurality of different workforce relative events depending on the discerned meaning; and

firing the real time event upon which the selection is based responsive to the occurrence.

14. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

establishing a plurality of configurable rules for the workforce, wherein each of the rules cause a workforce event to be fired when that rule is satisfied and wherein each of the rules has at least one conditional variable that must be true for the rule to be satisfied, wherein said conditional variable is derived from the gathered audio, wherein the workforce relative event is linked to one of the configurable rules.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the workforce relative event indicates a potential for a commercial transaction with a customer in the geographic region, said method further comprising:

automatically conveying a communication to at least one of the different communication devices proximate to the workforce relative event as determined using the acoustic map, wherein the communication, wherein the communication comprises at least one of a video and an audio message selected to facilitate the commercial transaction; and

presenting the communication to the customer upon the device.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the workforce relative event indicates a potential problem existing within the geographic region, which one of the employees would be able to correct, wherein the assigned real time task is one believed to correct the potential problem.

17. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining a potential need to train an employee in a manner for performing the assigned task based on information contained in the acoustic map; and

conveying a training document comprising text or video to the selected communication device to assist the selected employee in performing the assigned task.

18. The method of claim 1, wherein the workforce relative event is plotted to a portion of the acoustic map having a relatively low resolution of information due to relatively sparse gathered audio in the region proximate to the portion, said method further comprising:

automatically turning on microphones of a subset of the different communication devices proximate to the portion to increase an amount of gathered audio; and

updating the acoustic map utilizing the increased amount of gathered audio to increase a resolution of the acoustic map in the portion.

19. A computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having computer usable program code embodied therewith, the computer usable program code comprising:

computer usable program code which when executed by a processor is operable to gather audio from a plurality of different communication devices deployed throughout a geographic region within which a workforce performs a function, wherein the different communication devices comprise wireless devices for receiving and conveying sound, wherein said workforce comprises a plurality of employees that work within the geographic region and that utilize the different communication devices to communicate with each other;

computer usable program code which when executed by a processor is operable to aggregate the audio from the plurality of different communication devices to create an acoustic map of the geographic region comprising geographically plotted sound generating objects;

computer usable program code which when executed by a processor is operable to process sound generated from at least one of the sound generated objects plotted on the acoustic map to determine a workforce relative event, which is tracked by a task management system used by the workforce;

computer usable program code which when executed by a processor is operable to select among a set of a plurality of different employees positioned in the geographic region where the selection is based upon the workforce relative event determined from the at least one sound object;

computer usable program code which when executed by a processor is operable to assign at least one time constrained task to the selected one of the different employees selected from the set; and

computer usable program code which when executed by a processor is operable to communicate the assigned task to the selected employee via one of the different communication devices proximate to the selected employee.

20. A system for monitoring and managing a workforce in a geographic region comprising:

a communication component configured to permit bidirectional voice communications between a plurality of employees that work within a geographic region and that utilize different communication devices to communicate with each other when within the geographic region;

a mapping component configured to aggregate audio from the different communication devices to create an acoustic map of the geographic region comprising geographically plotted sound generating objects;

a task management component configured to assign tasks to a selected one of set of different employees positioned in the geographic region, wherein the selection is based upon a workforce relative event determined from the at least one sound generating objects, wherein the communication component is used to communicate the assigned tasks to selected one of the different employees.

21. The system of claim 20, wherein the different communication devices comprise two-way radio devices having relatively short range communications, which permit communications across the geographic region, wherein the communication component filters interactive communications among the two-way radio devices to reduce ambient sounds also referred to as noise within voice communications exchanged among the employees.

22. The system of claim 20, further comprising:

an audio processing component configured to determine information about the sound generating objects by digitally processing the audio and utilizing speaker identification and verification techniques as well as matching patterns of sounds to correlate those sounds to specific objects to be found in the geographic region.