Methods and systems for using natural language processing and machine-learning to produce vehicle-service content

• US 9,672,497 B1
• Filed: 11/04/2014
• Issued: 06/06/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 11/04/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Snap-On Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Snap-On Incorporated
• Inventors: Foreman, Jacob G., Lewis, Bradley R., Merg, Patrick S., Kelley, Brett A., Kasturi, Tilak B.
• Primary Examiner(s): SINGH, SATWANT K
• Application Number:
  US14/532,983
• Time in Patent Office: 945 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/284 Lexical analysis, e.g. tokenisation or collocates
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/40 Processing or translation of natural language natural language analysis G06F40/20; semantic analysis G06F40/30
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/20 Administration of product repair or maintenance

Abstract

Methods and systems for using natural language processing and machine-learning algorithms to process vehicle-service data to generate metadata regarding the vehicle-service data are described herein. A processor can discover vehicle-service data that can be clustered together based on the vehicle-service data having common characteristics. The clustered vehicle-service data can be classified (e.g., categorized) into any one of a plurality of categories. One of the categories can be for clustered vehicle-service data that is tip-worthy (e.g., determined to include data worthy of generating vehicle-service content (e.g., a repair hint). Another category can track instances of vehicle-service data that are considered to be common to an instance of vehicle-service data classified into the tip-worthy category. The vehicle-service data can be collected from repair orders from a plurality of repair shops. The vehicle-service content generated by the systems can be provided to those or other repair shops.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

identifying, by a natural language processor, that a computer-readable vehicle repair order (RO) represents terms of a natural human language that match one or more taxonomy terms within a defined taxonomy searchable by the natural language processor;

associating, by the natural language processor, a meaning with the RO based on the terms of the natural human language represented by the RO that match the one or more taxonomy terms;

generating, by the natural language processor, first metadata that represents the meaning associated with the RO;

generating vehicle-service content based at least in part on the first metadata;

generating, by the natural-language processor, second metadata that represents a meaning with at least a portion of a second RO;

aggregating, by the natural-language processor, at least the first metadata and the second metadata to produce aggregated metadata;

receiving a request for the vehicle-service content, and

in response to the request for the vehicle-service content, sending the vehicle-service content to be displayed by a service tool.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the terms of the natural human language that match the one or more taxonomy terms include at least one of (i) a symptom, (ii) a test performed, (iii) a part failure, and (iv) a labor operation.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the symptom includes a diagnostic trouble code identifier.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the terms of the natural human language that match the one or more taxonomy terms further include a part name for a part on a vehicle.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the natural language processor identifies a term of the terms of the natural human language as being a noun, a verb, a pronoun, an adjective, or an adverb.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the natural language processor selects the defined taxonomy term based on the identification of the term being a noun, a verb, a pronoun, an adjective, or an adverb.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the first metadata associated with the RO defines a cluster for repair orders having the meaning associated with the RO.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the first metadata associated with the RO defines a count of repairs orders the natural language processor has determined to have a meaning similar to the meaning associated with the RO.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the vehicle-service content further includes at least one content item selected from the group consisting of (i) a symptom, (ii) a test performed, (iii) a part failure, and (iv) a labor operation.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining the terms of the natural human language represented by the RO do not match terms of a defined cluster of repair orders; and

establishing a new cluster of repair orders for categorizing any RO associated with terms that match the terms of the natural human language represented by the RO.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the meaning associated with the at least a portion of the RO includes at least one of the following meanings:

(i) a symptom, (ii) a test performed, (iii) a part failure, and (iv) a labor operation.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the meaning associated with the at least a portion of the RO is a likely-meaning of the at least a portion of the RO or an actual-meaning of the at least a portion of the RO.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

storing, by a computer-readable medium, the one or more defined taxonomies searchable by the natural-language processor,

wherein the one or more defined taxonomies includes at least one of the following taxonomies;

(i) a labor operation taxonomy, (ii) a symptom taxonomy, (iii) a test performed taxonomy, and (iv) a part failure taxonomy.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein at least a portion of the first metadata that represents the meaning with the at least a portion of the RO represents one or more strings of the symbols of the natural human language selected from at least one of the defined taxonomies.

15. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

generating, by the data processing machine, the vehicle-service content based at least in part on the aggregated metadata.

16. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

defining, by the natural language processor, a repair order cluster for repair orders that have a meaning similar to the meaning associated with the RO; and

storing, within a portion of data storage associated with the RO cluster, metadata regarding one or more other repair orders that have the meaning similar to the meaning associated with the RO.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

analyzing, by a given processor, the metadata regarding the one or more other repair orders for occurrence of a trend;

detecting, by the given processor, occurrence of the trend; and

providing, by the given processor, an alert regarding occurrence of the trend.

18. A computing device comprising a processor and a computer-readable medium storing program instructions, that when executed by the processor, cause the computing device to perform a set of functions comprising:

identifying that a computer-readable vehicle repair order (RO) represents terms of a natural human language that match one or more taxonomy terms within a defined taxonomy searchable by the computing device;

associating, by the computing device, a meaning with the RO based on the terms of the natural human language represented by the RO that match the one or more taxonomy terms;

generating, by the computing device, first metadata that represents the meaning associated with the RO;

generating vehicle-service content based at least in part on the first metadata;

generating, by the computing device, second metadata that represents a meaning with at least a portion of a second RO;

aggregating, by the computing device, at least the first metadata and the second metadata to produce aggregated metadata;

receiving a request for the vehicle-service content, and

in response to the request for the vehicle-service content, sending the vehicle-service content to be displayed by a service tool.

19. The computing device of claim 18, wherein the terms of the natural human language that match the one or more taxonomy terms include at least one of (i) a symptom, (ii) a test performed, (iii) a part failure, and (iv) a labor operation.

20. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing program instructions, that when executed by a processor of a computing device, cause the computing device to perform a set of functions comprising:

identifying that a computer-readable vehicle repair order (RO) represents terms of a natural human language that match one or more taxonomy terms within a defined taxonomy searchable by the computing device;

associating a meaning with the RO based on the terms of the natural human language represented by the RO that match the one or more taxonomy terms;

generating first metadata that represents the meaning associated with the RO;

generating vehicle-service content based at least in part on the first metadata;

generating second metadata that represents a meaning with at least a portion of a second RO;

aggregating at least the first metadata and the second metadata to produce aggregated metadata;

receiving a request for the vehicle-service content, and

in response to the request for the vehicle-service content, sending the vehicle-service content to be displayed by a service tool.

21. A method comprising:

identifying, by a computing device, that a computer-readable vehicle repair order (RO) represents terms of a natural human language that match one or more taxonomy terms within a defined taxonomy searchable by the computing device;

associating, by the computing device, a meaning with the RO based on the terms of the natural human language represented by the RO that match the one or more taxonomy terms;

generating, by the computing device, first metadata that represents the meaning associated with the RO;

generating vehicle-service content based at least in part on the first metadata;

defining, by the computing device, a repair order cluster for repair orders that have a meaning similar to the meaning associated with the RO;

storing, by the computing device, metadata regarding one or more other repair orders that have the meaning similar to the meaning associated with the RO;

analyzing, by the computing device, the metadata regarding the one or more other repair orders for occurrence of a trend;

detecting, by the computing device, occurrence of the trend;

providing, by the computing device, an alert regarding occurrence of the trend;

receiving a request for the vehicle-service content, and

in response to the request for the vehicle-service content, sending the vehicle-service content to be displayed by a service tool.

22. A computing device comprising a processor and a computer-readable medium storing program instructions, that when executed by the processor, cause the computing device to perform a set of functions comprising:

identifying that a computer-readable vehicle repair order (RO) represents terms of a natural human language that match one or more taxonomy terms within a defined taxonomy searchable by the computing device;

associating a meaning with the RO based on the terms of the natural human language represented by the RO that match the one or more taxonomy terms;

generating first metadata that represents the meaning associated with the RO;

generating vehicle-service content based at least in part on the first metadata;

defining a repair order cluster for repair orders that have a meaning similar to the meaning associated with the RO;

storing metadata regarding one or more other repair orders that have the meaning similar to the meaning associated with the RO;

analyzing the metadata regarding the one or more other repair orders for occurrence of a trend;

detecting occurrence of the trend;

providing an alert regarding occurrence of the trend;

receiving a request for the vehicle-service content, and

in response to the request for the vehicle-service content, sending the vehicle-service content to be displayed by a service tool.

23. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing program instructions, that when executed by a processor of a computing device, cause the computing device to perform a set of functions comprising:

identifying that a computer-readable vehicle repair order (RO) represents terms of a natural human language that match one or more taxonomy terms within a defined taxonomy searchable by the processor;

associating a meaning with the RO based on the terms of the natural human language represented by the RO that match the one or more taxonomy terms;

generating first metadata that represents the meaning associated with the RO;

generating vehicle-service content based at least in part on the first metadata;

defining a repair order cluster for repair orders that have a meaning similar to the meaning associated with the RO;

storing metadata regarding one or more other repair orders that have the meaning similar to the meaning associated with the RO;

analyzing the metadata regarding the one or more other repair orders for occurrence of a trend;

detecting occurrence of the trend;

providing an alert regarding occurrence of the trend;

receiving a request for the vehicle-service content, and

in response to the request for the vehicle-service content, sending the vehicle-service content to be displayed by a service tool.