Monitoring and Planning for Failures of Vehicular Components

• US 20160093119A1
• Filed: 09/26/2014
• Published: 03/31/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 09/26/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Ahn, Hyung-il, Denesuk, Matthew, Hochstein, Axel, Leung, Ying Tat
• Granted Patent: US 9,454,855 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/20 Administration of product repair or maintenance
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/006 Indicating maintenance
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/008 communicating information to a remotely located station transmission systems for measured values G08C
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/0808 Diagnosing performance data testing of vehicles G01M17/00; testing of electrical installation on vehicles G01R31/005

Abstract

Methods, systems, devices and computer program products for planning for failures of vehicular components are provided herein. A method includes obtaining a first set of data of maintenance events recorded for multiple vehicular components across multiple vehicles in a fleet; obtaining a second set of data of maintenance work orders performed on the vehicular components; obtaining a third set of data of measurements taken in connection with the vehicular components; analyzing (i) the first set of data and (ii) the second set of data to identify component failure events associated with the multiple vehicular components; determining failure indicators for each of the vehicular components in each of the vehicles in the fleet based on the second set of data, the third set of data, and the identified component failure events; and outputting the indicators in multiple visualized forms, each representing one of multiple levels of granularity.

Claims

1. A method comprising the following steps:

obtaining a first set of data comprising maintenance events recorded in connection with multiple vehicular components across multiple vehicles in a fleet of vehicles, wherein said obtaining the first set of data comprises forming a connection between (i) a first database and (ii) a vehicular management device;

obtaining a second set of data comprising maintenance work orders performed on the multiple vehicular components across multiple vehicles in the fleet of vehicles, wherein said obtaining the second set of data comprises forming a connection between (i) a second database and (ii) the vehicular management device;

obtaining a third set of data comprising a collection of measurements taken in connection with the multiple vehicular components, wherein said obtaining the third set of data comprises forming a connection between (i) multiple sensors resident on and/or associated with the multiple vehicles in the given fleet of vehicles and (ii) the vehicular management device;

analyzing (i) the first set of data and (ii) the second set of data to identify one or more component failure events associated with the multiple vehicular components;

determining multiple failure indicators for each of the multiple vehicular components in each of the multiple vehicles in the given fleet of vehicles based on (i) the second set of data, (ii) the third set of data, and (iii) the one or more identified component failure events, wherein the multiple failure indicators comprise at least (a) a manufacturing defect-related failure indicator, (b) a wear-related failure indicator, and (c) a non-wear related failure indicator; and

outputting the multiple indicators in multiple visualized forms, wherein each of the multiple visualized forms represents one selected from the group consisting of;

(i) a level of the given fleet of vehicles, (ii) a level of a single vehicle selected from the given fleet, (iii) a level of one of the multiple vehicular components of the selected single vehicle, and (iv) a level of one of the multiple indicators associated with the one vehicular component of the selected single vehicle.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said analyzing (i) the first set of data and (ii) the second set of data comprises removing each event not associated with a work order from the maintenance work orders in the second set of data.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein said analyzing (i) the first set of data and (ii) the second set of data comprises removing each event not associated with a scheduled maintenance service from the maintenance events in the first set of data.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein said analyzing (i) the first set of data and (ii) the second set of data comprises labeling each event specifying a premature failure as a component failure.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein said analyzing (i) the first set of data and (ii) the second set of data comprises calculating, for each component replacement event in the maintenance events in the first set of data, a component lifetime achieved percentage for a given vehicular component corresponding to a given component replacement event by dividing lifetime operating hours of the given vehicular component by an expected lifetime of the given component.

6. The method of claim 5, comprising:

labeling each component replacement event with a lifetime achieved percentage smaller than a pre-specified threshold as a component failure.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein said determining the multiple failure indicators comprises determining the manufacturing defect-related failure indicator by determining a failure history of one or more vehicles that share one or more user-selected variables with the multiple vehicles in the fleet of vehicles.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the one or more user-selected variables comprise vehicle location, vehicle type, vehicle model, vehicle year, and/or cumulative operating hours of a vehicle.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein said determining the multiple failure indicators comprises determining the wear-related failure indicator by generating a cumulative wear-related indicator that combines two or more individual wear-related indicators for each of the multiple vehicular components in each of the multiple vehicles in the fleet of vehicles.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein said determining the multiple failure indicators comprises determining the non-wear related failure indicator by generating a cumulative non-wear related indicator that combines two or more individual non-wear related indicators for each of the multiple vehicular components in each of the multiple vehicles in the fleet of vehicles.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the multiple visualized forms comprise at least (i) a graph and (ii) a table for each of the multiple levels of granularity.

12. A computer program product, the computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having program instructions embodied therewith, the program instructions executable by a computing device to cause the computing device to:

obtain a first set of data comprising maintenance events recorded in connection with multiple vehicular components across multiple vehicles in a fleet of vehicles, wherein said obtaining the first set of data comprises forming a connection between (i) a first database and (ii) a vehicular management device;

obtain a second set of data comprising maintenance work orders performed on the multiple vehicular components across multiple vehicles in the fleet of vehicles, wherein said obtaining the second set of data comprises forming a connection between (i) a second database and (ii) the vehicular management device;

obtain a third set of data comprising a collection of measurements taken in connection with the multiple vehicular components, wherein said obtaining the third set of data comprises forming a connection between (i) multiple sensors resident on and/or associated with the multiple vehicles in the given fleet of vehicles and (ii) the vehicular management device;

analyze (i) the first set of data and (ii) the second set of data to identify one or more component failure events associated with the multiple vehicular components;

determine multiple failure indicators for each of the multiple vehicular components in each of the multiple vehicles in the given fleet of vehicles based on (i) the second set of data, (ii) the third set of data, and (iii) the one or more identified component failure events, wherein the multiple failure indicators comprise at least (a) a manufacturing defect-related failure indicator, (b) a wear-related failure indicator, and (c) a non-wear related failure indicator; and

output the multiple indicators in multiple visualized forms, wherein each of the multiple visualized forms represents one selected from the group consisting of;

(i) a level of the given fleet of vehicles, (ii) a level of a single vehicle selected from the given fleet, (iii) a level of one of the multiple vehicular components of the selected single vehicle, and (iv) a level of one of the multiple indicators associated with the one vehicular component of the selected single vehicle.

13. A system comprising:

a memory; and

at least one processor coupled to the memory and configured for;

obtaining a first set of data comprising maintenance events recorded in connection with multiple vehicular components across multiple vehicles in a fleet of vehicles, wherein said obtaining the first set of data comprises forming a connection between (i) a first database and (ii) a vehicular management device;

obtaining a second set of data comprising maintenance work orders performed on the multiple vehicular components across multiple vehicles in the fleet of vehicles, wherein said obtaining the second set of data comprises forming a connection between (i) a second database and (ii) the vehicular management device;

obtaining a third set of data comprising a collection of measurements taken in connection with the multiple vehicular components, wherein said obtaining the third set of data comprises forming a connection between (i) multiple sensors resident on and/or associated with the multiple vehicles in the given fleet of vehicles and (ii) the vehicular management device;

analyzing (i) the first set of data and (ii) the second set of data to identify one or more component failure events associated with the multiple vehicular components;

determining multiple failure indicators for each of the multiple vehicular components in each of the multiple vehicles in the given fleet of vehicles based on (i) the second set of data, (ii) the third set of data, and (iii) the one or more identified component failure events, wherein the multiple failure indicators comprise at least (a) a manufacturing defect-related failure indicator, (b) a wear-related failure indicator, and (c) a non-wear related failure indicator; and

outputting the multiple indicators in multiple visualized forms, wherein each of the multiple visualized forms represents one selected from the group consisting of;

(i) a level of the given fleet of vehicles, (ii) a level of a single vehicle selected from the given fleet, (iii) a level of one of the multiple vehicular components of the selected single vehicle, and (iv) a level of one of the multiple indicators associated with the one vehicular component of the selected single vehicle.

14. A vehicular management device comprising:

a vehicular component status determination engine, executing on the vehicular management device, to analyze (i) a first set of data comprising maintenance events recorded in connection with multiple vehicular components across multiple vehicles in a fleet of vehicles and (ii) a second set of data comprising maintenance work orders performed on the multiple vehicular components across the multiple vehicles in the given fleet of vehicles to identify one or more component failure events associated with the multiple vehicular components;

a vehicular component manufacturing defect-related failure indicator engine, executing on the vehicular management device, to calculate a manufacturing defect-related failure indicator for each of the multiple vehicular components in each of the multiple vehicles in the fleet of vehicles based on (i) the second set of data, (ii) a third set of data comprising a collection of measurements taken in connection with the multiple vehicular components, and (iii) the one or more identified component failure events;

a vehicular component wear-related failure indicator engine, executing on the vehicular management device, to calculate a wear-related failure indicator for each of the multiple vehicular components in each of the multiple vehicles in the given fleet of vehicles based on (i) the second set of data, (ii) the third set of data, and (iii) the one or more identified component failure events; and

a vehicular component non-wear related failure indicator engine, executing on the vehicular management device, to calculate a non-wear related failure indicator for each of the multiple vehicular components in each of the multiple vehicles in the given fleet of vehicles based on (i) the second set of data, (ii) the third set of data, and (iii) the one or more identified component failure events;

wherein the vehicular component status determination engine, the vehicular component manufacturing defect-related failure indicator engine, the vehicular component wear-related failure indicator engine, and the vehicular component non-wear related failure indicator engine, are coupled to a graphical user interface for user manipulation of (i) the manufacturing defect-related failure indicator, (ii) the wear-related failure indicator, and (iii) the non-wear related failure indicator for each of the multiple vehicular components.

15. The vehicular management device of claim 14, wherein the graphical user interface enables user manipulation of multiple visualized forms of output, wherein each of the multiple visualized forms represents one of multiple levels of granularity comprising (i) a level of the fleet of vehicles, (ii) a level of a single vehicle selected from the fleet, (iii) a level of one of the multiple vehicular components of the selected single vehicle, and (iv) a level of one of the multiple indicators associated with the one vehicular component of the selected single vehicle.

16. The vehicular management device of claim 15, wherein the level of a single vehicle selected from the fleet comprises (i) the number of the multiple vehicular components with a wear-related failure indicator above a pre-selected threshold, (ii) a pre-selected summary statistic across all wear-related failure indicators for the multiple vehicular components, (iii) the number of the multiple vehicular components with a non-wear related failure indicator above a pre-selected threshold, and (iv) the pre-selected summary statistic across all non-wear related failure indicators for the multiple vehicular components.

17. The vehicular management device of claim 16, wherein the pre-selected summary statistic comprises one of an average value and a maximum value.

18. The vehicular management device of claim 15, wherein the level of a single vehicle selected from the given fleet comprises (i) the number of wear-related failure indicators above a pre-selected threshold for the single vehicle, (ii) a pre-selected summary statistic across all wear-related failure indicators for the multiple vehicular components of the single vehicle, (iii) the number of non-wear related failure indicators above a pre-selected threshold for the single vehicle, and (iv) a pre-selected summary statistic across all non-wear related failure indicators for the multiple vehicular components of the single vehicle.

19. The vehicular management device of claim 18, wherein the pre-selected summary statistic comprises one of an average value and a maximum value.

20. The vehicular management device of claim 15, wherein the level of one of the multiple vehicular components of the selected single vehicle comprises an identification of one or more potential component failures due to a wear-related cause, a non-wear related cause, and/or a manufacturing defect-related cause.