Remote maintenance method, industrial device, and semiconductor device

• US 7,047,096 B2
• Filed: 09/20/2004
• Issued: 05/16/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 05/31/2001
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Inventors: Iizumi, Takashi, Aizono, Takeiki, Arima, Juntaro, Inaba, Masaaki
• Primary Examiner(s): Picard, Leo
• Assistant Examiner(s): Jarrett, Ryan A.
• Application Number:
  US10/943,891
• Publication Number:
  US 20050033465A1
• Time in Patent Office: 603 Days
• Field of Search: 700108-110, 700/121, 702/184, 702/188
• US Class Current: 700/108
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 19/4184 characterised by fault tolerance, reliability of production system
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 2219/24001 Maintenance, repair
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 2219/32234 Maintenance planning
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 23/0267 Fault communication, e.g. human machine interface [HMI]
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 23/0283 Predictive maintenance, e.g. involving the monitoring of a system and, based on the monitoring results, taking decisions on the maintenance schedule of the monitored system; Estimating remaining useful life [RUL] preventive maintenance, i.e. planning maintenance according to the available resources without monitoring the system G06Q10/06
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0283 Price estimation or determination
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/04 Billing or invoicing
• CPC Class Codes: Y02P 90/02 Total factory control, e.g. smart factories, flexible manufacturing systems [FMS] or integrated manufacturing systems [IMS]
• CPC Class Codes: Y02P 90/80 Management or planning

Abstract

The present invention provides a remote maintenance method, a remote maintenance system, and an industrial device for enabling control and thorough services and billing according to the contents of the remote maintenance operation and the request destination of maintenance and enabling access limit according to the attribute of a service person, access limit according to the device state, and output limit according to the output mode. The industrial device 123 installed at the factory 120 and the operation device 113 installed in the maintenance center 110 are connected via the network 100. The operation device 113 transmits command information indicating a command concerning maintenance to the industrial device 123 and the industrial device 123 executes a process according to the received command information, generates charge information indicating a charge concerning maintenance according to the contents of the executed process, and outputs the whole or a part of the generated charge information to the output device of the industrial device 123.

Claims

1. A remote maintenance method for a system in which an industrial device for executing a specific process and an operation device for maintaining said industrial device are connected to each other via a network, characterized in that said operation device transmits command information indicating a maintenance command to said industrial device and said industrial device executes said process according to said received command information, holds state information indicating an operational device state of said industrial device at a time when said command is received and execution condition information indicating a process execution condition in which said operational device state must satisfy to execute said process according to said command information, reads said state information and said execution condition information when said industrial device receives said command information from said operation device, and executes said process according to said command information only when said operational device state in said state information satisfies said process execution condition in said execution condition information.

2. A remote maintenance method according to claim 1, wherein said industrial device is a semiconductor manufacturing device.

3. An industrial device for receiving a maintenance operation from an operation device connected via a network by remote control, comprising communication means for receiving command information indicating a command of maintenance from said operation device and processing means for executing a process according to said command information received by said communication means, wherein said processing means holds state information indicating an operational device state of said industrial device at a time when said command is received and said communication means holds execution condition information indicating a process execution condition in which said operational device state must satisfy to execute said process according to said command information, obtains said state information from said processing means when said communication means receives said command information from said operation device, reads said execution condition information, and permits execution of said process according to said command information only when said operational device state of said state information satisfies said process execution condition of said execution condition information.

4. An industrial device according to claim 3, wherein said industrial device is a semiconductor manufacturing device.