Apparatus for calculating a repair cost of a damaged car

• US 5,317,503 A
• Filed: 03/27/1992
• Issued: 05/31/1994
• Est. Priority Date: 03/27/1992
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Repair-Tech Publishing, Inc. (Proto Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Isao Inoue
• Inventors: Inoue, Isao
• Primary Examiner(s): Weinhardt, Robert A.
• Application Number:
  US07/858,951
• Time in Patent Office: 795 Days
• Field of Search: 364/400, 364/401, 364/402, 364/406, 364/464.01
• US Class Current: 700/90
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0875 Itemisation or classification of parts, supplies or services, e.g. bill of materials
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0283 Price estimation or determination
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/02 Banking, e.g. interest calculation or account maintenance credit or loans G06Q40/03

Abstract

Necessary information in an estimate of repair cost of a damaged car, for example, damage types, repair work items, parts names, values of repair cost are stored. By displaying these information on a screen and selecting necessary items for a repair work, an estimate of repair cost can be made with convenience, accuracy, efficiency and without error. By displaying an illustration of a part on the same screen where data of the part are displayed, an accurate estimate is realized. Further, providing a sheet wherein a part and a work item and so on are described, the estimate is carried out by inputting a code number. Such a configuration prevents an estimate omission. By using, for example, a Compact Disk which has a large storage capacity as a recording medium, a large amount of information is stored.

Claims

1. An apparatus for estimating a repair cost of a damaged car, comprising:

a processor;

an input device, operatively coupled to said processor, for inputting user instructions to said processor;

a display device, operatively coupled to said processor, having a display screen and responsive to said processor to display images on said display screen;

a CD-ROM, operatively coupled to said processor, having stored therein repair work data and coating work data associated with each of at least one car model, wherein said repair work data includes a plurality of car section data corresponding to respective plural car sections of the associated car model, each car section data including repair time information and repair part information for each of a plurality of car parts which make up the corresponding car section of the associated car model, and wherein said coating work data includes plural coating color and coating material information and coating time information associated with each part of the associated model for which an estimate of painting is necessary;

wherein said processor is responsive to said input device to select a region of the damaged car and to specify a degree of damage of the selected region, and then to display on said display device a listing of the plurality of car section data associated with the selected region of the damaged car having the specified degree of damage, and wherein said processor is further responsive to said input device to select at least one of the displayed plurality of car section data and to display on said display screen of said display device the repair time information and repair part information of the plurality of car parts of the selected car section data, and wherein said processor is further responsive to said input means to select at least one of plurality of car parts of the selected car section data and to calculate and display on said display device a car section repair cost according to the repair part information and repair time information of each selected car part of each selected car section data, and wherein said processor is further responsive to said input device to select a combination of a coating color and a coating material from among said coating color information and coating material information, respectively, and for calculating and displaying a coating cost for each selected car section in accordance with the selected combination of the coating color and coating material and the coating time information.

2. An apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein said processor is further responsive to said input device to specify a listing order in which the plurality of car section data associated with a selected region of the damaged car having the specified degree of damage are displayed.

3. An apparatus as claimed in claim 2, wherein said processor includes means for multiplying a repair time for each car section by a labor rate to obtain a labor cost for each car section.

4. An apparatus as claimed in claim 2, wherein said CD-ROM further includes image data for each of the plurality of car sections, and wherein said processor is responsive to the selection of a car section data by said input means to display the image data of the selected car section data on said display screen of said display device.

5. An apparatus as claimed in claim 2, further comprising a hard copy listing of a plurality of car parts and assigned parts numbers, and wherein said processor is responsive to a part number input by said input device to select a corresponding car part.

6. An apparatus as claimed in claim 2, wherein said processor includes means for displaying an operation procedure of said apparatus on said display screen of said display device, said operation procedure stored in a memory associated with said processor.