Restroom convenience center

• US 8,364,546 B2
• Filed: 11/05/2008
• Issued: 01/29/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 11/05/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sloan Valve Company
• Original Assignee: Sloan Valve Company
• Inventors: Yenni, Edward, Jahrling, Peter J.
• Primary Examiner(s): Zeender, F.
• Assistant Examiner(s): CHEIN, ALLEN C
• Application Number:
  US12/290,914
• Publication Number:
  US 20090119142A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,546 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 705/22
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063114 Status monitoring or status determination for a person or group
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/087 Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks

Abstract

A restroom monitoring system for monitoring attributes of fixtures within a restroom using sensors. Additional attributes are determined from the monitored attributes. Consumable usage levels are estimated based on predetermined consumption levels associated with usage states of the fixtures. The restroom monitoring system provides an indication of the need for replenishment of consumables based on the monitored attributes of the fixtures. In addition, restroom monitoring system may provide additional information regarding the restroom attributes to a service provider, a manager or a user.

Claims

1. A method for automatically generating work orders for a restroom comprising;

sensing a state for each of a plurality of fixture sensors;

sensing a nonfixture state from a non-fixture sensor associated with the restroom;

communicating the sensed states to a controller;

determining by the controller a state of a non-sensorized restroom fixture not associated with one of the plurality of fixture sensors based on inference from the sensed states, the non-sensorized restroom fixture not in communication with the controller;

for each of a plurality of types of consumable dispensers within the restroom, calculating the use of a consumable based upon the sensed state of at least one of the plurality of fixture sensors and one or more of, the sensed state of the nonfixture state from a non-fixture sensor associated with the restroom, and the determined state of the non-sensorized restroom fixture by, for each of the plurality of types of consumable dispensers, applying a fixture to consumable correlation factor associated with the fixture sensor;

determining by the controller when the total amount of consumable used for each of the plurality of types of consumable dispensers surpasses a predetermined threshold; and

issuing a work order for replenishment from the controller, indicating the type and amount of consumable to be replenished for which the respective threshold has been surpassed.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating a time/date stamp for each sensed state.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising generating historical use data of the restroom based on the sensed data and time/date stamp and storing the historical use data.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising altering the predetermined threshold based on the historical use data.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising providing a manual input to alter the predetermined threshold based on the historical use data.