Facility Support Status Display System with Color-Coded Icons

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Solution Overview

Problem

Existing information display systems for facility maintenance fail to clearly convey the current support status of elevating machines, making it difficult for customers to understand whether a facility is currently experiencing a failure and if support has been completed.

Innovation Solution

An information display system that includes a support status management unit to associate and manage the cause and status of facility stoppages, using a display control unit to show stop causes as identifiable icons on a display terminal, indicating whether support is in progress or completed.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Loss of information

If detailed failure information and support status are displayed in a list format, then comprehensive information is provided, but the customer finds it difficult to understand the current support status at a glance

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveinformation completenessVSAvoidease of understanding
Core Design Contradiction:
Loss of informationVSEase of operation

Solution Approach 1:

The display is segmented into different visual elements: stop cause icons, support status indicators, and time information. This segmentation allows the customer to quickly identify the current support status without being overwhelmed by detailed list information, while still accessing comprehensive data when needed.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #1Segmentation

Solution Approach 2:

The patent uses color-coded indicators to represent different support statuses (e.g., red for support in progress, green for support completed). This visual differentiation enables customers to immediately understand the current state of facility support without reading detailed text, resolving the contradiction between information completeness and ease of understanding.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #32Color changes

2Loss of information

If stop causes and support status are displayed separately, then detailed information is available, but the customer cannot quickly recognize the current support status

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveinformation completenessVSAvoidtime to understand status
Core Design Contradiction:
Loss of informationVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The patent merges the stop cause information and support status into a single integrated display unit. Each stop cause is associated with its corresponding support status indicator, allowing the customer to simultaneously view both pieces of information and quickly determine the current status without time-consuming searches through separate sections.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #5Merging (Combining)

Solution Approach 2:

The display transitions from a traditional list format (one-dimensional) to a visual icon-based format with color coding (two-dimensional visual encoding). This dimensional change allows for faster perception and understanding of support status while maintaining information completeness through the iconography and color relationships.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #17Another dimension (Dimensionality change)

Data Source

PatentEP3812976A1Information display system and method of displaying information
Publication Date: 2021.04.28 HITACHI BUILDING SYST CO LTD
  • EP3812976A1 patent drawingFigure 1
  • EP3812976A1 patent drawingFigure 2
  • EP3812976A1 patent drawingFigure 3

AI summary

Provided is an information display system that allows a customer to recognize what a current support status is like at a glance. The information display system (100) includes a support status management unit (134) that manages a stop cause indicating a cause of a stop of a facility installed in a building (101) and a status of support for a failure in the facility in association with each other, the status of the support for the failure in the facility including at least support-in-progress indicating that the failure is being supported and support-completed indicating that the support for the failure has been completed, and a display control unit (135) that displays the stop cause managed by the support status management unit (134) on a display terminal (140) to be identifiable as the support-in-progress or the support-completed.