Diagnosis and repair system and method

• US 6,959,235 B1
• Filed: 08/23/2000
• Issued: 10/25/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 10/28/1999
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: GE Global Sourcing LLC (Westinghouse Air Brake Technologies Corporation)
• Original Assignee: General Electric Company
• Inventors: Schlabach, James E., Gomez, Ivan, Mathewson, Bryan A., Scallan, Brian, Bruno, Jeanette M., Fera, Gregory J., Abdel-Malek, Aiman
• Primary Examiner(s): Camby, Richard M.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Tran, Dalena
• Application Number:
  US09/644,421
• Time in Patent Office: 1,889 Days
• Field of Search: 701/29, 701/35, 701/30, 701/33, 701/24, 701/34, 340/988, 340/825.69, 340/457.4
• US Class Current: 701/33
• CPC Class Codes: B61L 27/57 for vehicles or trains, e.g. trackside supervision of train conditions
• 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

A diagnosis and repair recommendation system for a railroad locomotive is disclosed. The system uses generalized repair recommendations and instantiates them to a specific repair process for a unique road number locomotive. In addition to repair steps to be executed by the technician, the method and system remotely provides supporting documentation specifically tailored for each step in the repair process. As the repair is being conducted, feedback information is entered by the technician. The repair recommendations and the supporting documents are available to the technician via a remote unit, thereby allowing the technician to access the repair steps and supporting documentation while the repair is in progress.

Claims

1. A method for generating and implementing a service recommendation for a locomotive, said method comprising:

collecting operating information from the locomotive via a first computing device on the locomotive;

communicating the operating information to a remote diagnostic center via a wireless communications link;

analyzing the operating information at the diagnostic center to identify anomalous conditions in the operation of the locomotive;

generating a service recommendation for the anomalous condition of the locomotive;

posting the service recommendation to an Internet site for later retrieval, wherein the Internet site comprises a web site;

providing an address of the Internet site where the service recommendation is posted to a portable second computing device operated by a technician at the site of the locomotive for implementing the service recommendation on the locomotive;

downloading the service recommendation from the address of the Internet site to the second computing device; and

displaying multimedia information associated with the service recommendation and downloaded from the web site on a display of the second computing device.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the service recommendation comprises instructions for conducting repairs or performing maintenance operations on the locomotive, wherein the repairs or maintenance operations are responsive to the anomalous condition.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the diagnostic center is located to service a plurality of geographically distributed locomotives, and wherein a site of the locomotive is a remotely-located service facility.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising;

returning information relevant to the service recommendation to the diagnostic center from a location of the locomotive via the wireless communications link.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein the returned information is in the form of a video image of a portion of the locomotive.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the returned information is in the form of an audible message.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising transmitting voice signals over the wireless communications link between the diagnostic center and a site of the locomotive.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the multimedia information includes one or more of pictures, photographs, text, pre-recorded audio, real-time audio, pre-recorded video and real-time video.

9. The method of claim 1 further comprising at a location of the locomotive, ordering repair parts from a parts inventory store to implement the service recommendation.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein the service recommendation includes technical information of the structure and operation of components on the locomotive as related to the anomalous condition.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein the technical information describes the components and operation of the locomotive.

12. The method of claim 10 further comprising retrieving technical information relevant to the service recommendation from the remote diagnostic center in response to a plurality of sequential queries originating from the second computing device and communicated to the diagnostic center.

13. The method of claim 1 further comprising, during execution of the service recommendation, answering queries included within the service recommendation to provide feedback to the diagnostic center via the second computing device.

14.. The method of claim 1 wherein each locomotive is assigned a unique designator, further comprising providing the unique designator to the remote diagnostic center via the wireless communications link, and wherein the unique designator is utilized at the remote diagnostic center for generating the recommendation, and wherein each service recommendation is associated with a specific locomotive based on the locomotive designator.

15. The method of claim 1 further comprising requesting, from the diagnostic center over the wireless communications link, configuration information of one or more components of the locomotive.

16. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

passing a bar code reader proximate a bar code on a component of the locomotive; and

providing the information derived from the bar code to the diagnostic center.

17. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

taking a video image of a component of the land based vehicle; and

providing the video image to the diagnostic center.

18. The method of claim 1 further comprising creating a record when a service recommendation is provided to the location of the locomotive.

19. The method of claim 1 further comprising providing information as to the status of the implementation of each service recommendation to the second computing device from the input/output device.

24. The method of claim 1 wherein the service recommendation further comprises technical information in the form of one or more of schematic diagrams, photographs, textual technical descriptions, block diagrams, and parts list relevant to the anomalous condition.

14. The method of claim 14 further comprising transmitting queries from the diagnostic center to the location of the locomotive over the wireless communications link, wherein the queries request operational parametric information for the uniquely identified locomotive.

20. The method of claim 20 wherein the status information includes one of the following:

ongoing, halted, and closed.

21. The method of claim 20 wherein the second computing device includes a kiosk for displaying all service recommendations stored therein including the status of each service recommendation.

22. The method of claim 20 wherein the second computing device includes a kiosk for printing all service recommendations stored therein, including the status of each such service recommendation.

23. The method of claim 20 further comprising displaying each service recommendation and the implementation status thereof on a monitor board.

25. A method for generating and implementing a service recommendation for a land-based vehicle, said method comprising:

collecting operating information from the land-based vehicle via a first computing device on the vehicle;

communicating the operating information to a remote diagnostic center via a wireless communications link;

analyzing the operating information at the diagnostic center to identify anomalous conditions in the operation of the land-based vehicle;

generating a service recommendation comprising instructions for conducting repairs or performing maintenance operations on the land-based vehicle, wherein the repairs or maintenance operations are responsive to the anomalous condition;

communicating the service recommendation from the diagnostic center to a second computing device at a service location for the land-based vehicle; and

accessing the service recommendation from the second computing device via an input/output device to implement the service recommendation on the land-based vehicle;

storing the service recommendations in a database on the second computing device, wherein each service recommendation has an assigned version number;

examining the version number of each stored service recommendation;

determining if there is more than a single version for a service recommendation; and

retaining only the latest version for any service recommendation having more than one version.

26. A method for generating and implementing a service recommendation for a land-based vehicle, said method comprising:

collecting operating information from the land-based vehicle via a first computing device on the vehicle;

communicating the operating information to a remote diagnostic center via a wireless communications link;

analyzing the operating information at the diagnostic center to identify anomalous conditions in the operation of the land-based vehicle;

generating a service recommendation comprising instructions for conducting repairs or performing maintenance operations on the land-based vehicle, wherein the repairs or maintenance operations are responsive to the anomalous condition;

communicating the service recommendation from the diagnostic center to a second computing device at a service location for the land-based vehicle; and

accessing the service recommendation from the second computing device via an input/output device to implement the service recommendation on the land-based vehicle;

creating a record when a service recommendation is terminated prior to completion.

27. A method for closing a service recommendation for maintenance or repair of a land-based vehicle at a remote service site, said method comprising:

confirming the implementation of a service recommendation for maintenance or repair performed on a land-based vehicle at the remote service site;

determining that the vehicle as serviced operates properly to resume operational status;

completing a return-to-service procedure for the vehicle, including communicating said operational status to a service center;

returning the vehicle to service.

28. The method of claim 28 wherein the return-to-service procedure includes returning the vehicle to an operational status.

29. The method of claim 28 further comprising reassigning service personnel who implemented the service recommendation when the vehicle is returned to service.

30. The method of claim 28 further comprising:

determining whether there is an inventory deficiency for one or more components replaced on the vehicle; and

in response to the determining step, restocking the inventory of said components.

31. The method of claim 28 further comprising reassigning the service site for implementing another service recommendation at said site.

32. A system for generating and implementing a service recommendation for a locomotive, said system comprising:

a first computing component on the locomotive for collecting operating information from the locomotive;

a first communication component responsive to the first computing component for sending the operating information from the locomotive to a diagnostic center via a first wireless communications link;

an analysis component at the diagnostic center for analyzing the operating information to identify anomalous conditions in the operation of the locomotive;

in response to the analysis component, a recommendation-generating component at the diagnostic center for creating a service recommendation to overcome the anomalous condition; and

a second communication component for posting the service recommendation to an Internet site, wherein the Internet site comprises a web site;

a second portable computing component at a service location of the locomotive, wherein the second communication component provides an address of the Internet site to the second computing component, and wherein the second computing component downloads the service recommendation from the address of the Internet site to the second computing component for implementation of the service recommendation on the locomotive by a technician operating the second computing component; and

an input/output device comprising a display for displaying multimedia information associated with the service recommendation downloaded from the web site.

33. The system of claim 33 wherein the service recommendation includes instructions for making one or more repairs to or performing maintenance on the locomotive and technical documentation related to the structure and function of the locomotive.

34. The system of claim 33 wherein the second computing component downloads the service recommendation from the Internet site to the second computing component over a second wireless communications link.