Protective maintenance service system for vehicles

• US 20020193923A1
• Filed: 03/13/2002
• Published: 12/19/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 06/15/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Inventors: Ito, Akio, Nakahara, Takashi, Toyama, Atsuya, Yoshioka, Tatsuo, Manaka, Toshio
• Granted Patent: US 6,662,090 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 701/30
• CPC Class Codes: B60S 5/00 Servicing, maintaining, repairing, or refitting of vehicles vehicles adapted to carry a workshop for servicing or maintenance B60P3/14; servicing rail locomotives B61K
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/008 communicating information to a remotely located station transmission systems for measured values G08C

Abstract

The present invention provides a protective maintenance service system capable of raising an alarm for the replacement of a part when the degradation of an inspection required part reaches the prescribed criteria of replacement. Of the respective inspection required parts stored in the vehicle inspection parts database for the respective vehicles stored in the vehicle database provided by a business unit in advance, the time of part replacement is determined on the basis of the data detected by a part condition sensor for a part having a part condition sensor, and on the basis of the time, which is obtained from the service life compensated with an actual service environment, for a part without a part condition sensor.

Claims

1. A protective maintenance service system for vehicles by a service provider, with which a business unit that controls a plurality of vehicles makes a contract of protective maintenance service for monitoring conditions of inspection required parts of the respective vehicles that are under the control of said business unit, wherein of the respective inspection required parts stored in a vehicle inspection parts database for the respective vehicles, which are provided by the business unit in advance and stored in a vehicle database, when a time of part replacement is approaching, an alarm is raised for a part having a part condition sensor according to the data detected by said part condition sensor, and for a part without a part condition sensor according to a service life compensated with an actual service environment.

2. The protective maintenance service system for vehicles according to claim 1, wherein an alarm of replacement for a part, which requires more than a given performance for safety driving of said inspection required parts, is sent to a vehicle mounted unit.

3. A protective maintenance service system for vehicles by a service provider, with which a business unit that controls a plurality of vehicles makes a contract of protective maintenance service for monitoring conditions of inspection required parts of the respective vehicles that are under the control of said business unit, wherein of the respective inspection required parts stored in a vehicle inspection parts database for the respective vehicles, which are provided by the business unit in advance and stored in a vehicle database, an expected time of part replacement is supplied for a part having a part condition sensor by computing the expected time of part replacement with the change of an inspection required part per time and the degree of degradation development of the inspection required part, which is computed with the change of the inspection required part per time detected by said part condition sensor and a mileage per time in the past, and for a part without a part condition sensor by computing an expected time of part replacement with a service life compensated with an actual service environment.

4. A protective maintenance service system for vehicles by a service provider, with which a business unit that controls a plurality of vehicles makes a contract of protective maintenance service for monitoring conditions of inspection required parts of the respective vehicles that are under the control of said business unit, wherein databases comprise,

a vehicle database provided by the business unit in advance, which stores the information of vehicles under the control of the business unit,

a vehicle inspection parts database, which stores the contents and service lives of the inspection required parts of the respective vehicles that are provided by the business unit in advance and stored in said vehicle database,

a part condition sensor database, which stores the sensors attached to the parts that require continuous condition monitoring, of the respective inspection required parts stored in said vehicle inspection parts database,

an environment sensor database, which stores the sensors that are mounted on the vehicles stored in said vehicle database and detect the ambient environments of the vehicles,

a vehicle service environment database, which stores the environmental conditions under which the vehicles stored in said vehicle database are in service,

a road/road surface database, which stores the information on roads and road surfaces on maps incorporating the road and road surface data that is provided by said respective vehicles,

a vehicle condition monitoring database, which stores the conditions of the respective parts of the respective vehicles that are stored in said vehicle database,

a maintenance database, which stores the information on repair and replacement of the respective inspection required parts that are stored in said vehicle inspection parts database at inspection-maintenance,

a map database, which stores the map information throughout a country, and the current degradation conditions of the respective parts are stored in said vehicle condition monitoring database, by determining the degradation conditions of the inspection required parts stored in said vehicle inspection parts database on the basis of, the part condition information detected by the part condition sensors and stored in said part condition sensor database, the environment information of the vehicles in service stored in said vehicle service environment database based on the vehicle ambient environment information detected by the environment sensors stored in said environment sensor database, and the road and road surface information stored in said road/road surface information database.

5. The protective maintenance service system for vehicles according to claim 4, wherein an alarm of part replacement is transmitted to said business unit when a search for time of part replacement is made for each inspection required part stored in said vehicle inspection parts database, by determining the time of replacement on the basis of the data detected by a part condition sensor stored in said part condition sensor database, or by determining a time of replacement on the basis of a service life compensated with an actual service environment stored in the environment sensor database for a part without said part condition sensor.

6. The protective maintenance service system for vehicles according to claim 4, wherein an expected value by computation for a time of part replacement is transmitted to said business unit for each inspection required part stored in said vehicle inspection parts database, by computing the expected time of part replacement with the change of an inspection required part per time and the degree of degradation development of the inspection required part, which is computed with the change of the inspection required part per time detected by the part condition sensor stored in said part condition sensor database and a mileage per time in the past, and by computing an expected time of part replacement on the basis of a service life compensated with an actual service environment stored in the environment sensor database for a part without said part condition sensor.

7. The protective maintenance service system for vehicles according to claim 5, wherein an expected value by computation for a time of part replacement is transmitted to said business unit for each inspection required part stored in said vehicle inspection parts database, by computing the expected time of part replacement with the change of an inspection required part per time and the degree of degradation development of the inspection required part, which is computed with the change of the inspection required part per time detected by the part condition sensor stored in said part condition sensor database and a mileage per time in the past, and by computing an expected time of part replacement on the basis of a service life compensated with an actual service environment stored in the environment sensor database for a part without said part condition sensor.

8. The protective maintenance service system for vehicles according to claim 4, wherein the current conditions of degradation of a part, which are stored in said vehicle condition monitoring database, are supplied at the request of said business unit.

9. The protective maintenance service system for vehicles according to claim 5, wherein the current conditions of degradation of a part, which are stored in said vehicle condition monitoring database, are supplied at the request of said business unit.

10. The protective maintenance service system for vehicles according to claim 6, wherein the current conditions of degradation of a part, which are stored in said vehicle condition monitoring database, are supplied at the request of said business unit.

11. The protective maintenance service system for vehicles according to claim 7, wherein the current conditions of degradation of a part, which are stored in said vehicle condition monitoring database, are supplied at the request of said business unit.

12. The protective maintenance service system for vehicles according to claim 4, wherein the contents and service life of a part, which are stored in said vehicle inspection parts database, are updated on the basis of the maintenance data stored in said maintenance database.

13. The protective maintenance service system for vehicles according to claim 5, wherein the contents and service life of a part, which are stored in said vehicle inspection parts database, are updated on the basis of the maintenance data stored in said maintenance database.

14. The protective maintenance service system for vehicles according to claim 6, wherein the contents and service life of a part, which are stored in said vehicle inspection parts database, are updated on the basis of the maintenance data stored in said maintenance database.

15. The protective maintenance service system for vehicles according to claim 7, wherein the contents and service life of a part, which are stored in said vehicle inspection parts database, are updated on the basis of the maintenance data stored in said maintenance database.

16. The protective maintenance service system for vehicles according to claim 4, wherein the vehicle inspection parts database, which stores the contents and service life of a replaced inspection required part, is updated subsequent to updating of said maintenance database.

17. The protective maintenance service system for vehicles according to claim 5, wherein the vehicle inspection parts database, which stores the contents and service life of a replaced inspection required part, is updated subsequent to updating of said maintenance database.

18. The protective maintenance service system for vehicles according to claim 6, wherein the vehicle inspection parts database, which stores the contents and service life of a replaced inspection required part, is updated subsequent to updating of said maintenance database.

19. The protective maintenance service system for vehicles according to claim 7, wherein the vehicle inspection parts database, which stores the contents and service life of a replaced inspection required part, is updated subsequent to updating of said maintenance database.