Work Vehicle Alert Scoring for Repair Priority Worklists

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Solution Overview

Problem

Current methods for monitoring work vehicles and scheduling their repairs lack efficiency in prioritizing maintenance based on real-time diagnostic data and customer-specific demands, leading to potential delays and decreased customer satisfaction.

Innovation Solution

An apparatus that includes an interface to access alerts from work vehicles, a scorer to generate severity scores, a weighting factor applier to prioritize repairs, and a worklist generator that determines the order of repairs based on machine health scores and classifications, ensuring that critical vehicles are addressed before less urgent ones.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Productivity

If repairs are scheduled based on routine maintenance schedules, then maintenance coverage is ensured, but repair efficiency and customer satisfaction decrease due to inability to prioritize urgent cases

Engineering Contradiction:
Improverepair efficiencyVSAvoiddelay in urgent repairs
Core Design Contradiction:
ProductivityVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The system dynamically adjusts repair priorities based on real-time machine health scores and alert severities. Instead of static maintenance schedules, the worklist generator continuously re-ranks vehicles according to their current operational status, allowing urgent repairs to be automatically prioritized as conditions deteriorate.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #15Dynamics

Solution Approach 2:

The system implements continuous feedback loops where diagnostic data from machines feeds into health score calculations, which then update worklist priorities. This closed-loop system monitors machine conditions, evaluates severity through scoring mechanisms, and adjusts repair scheduling in response to changing conditions, ensuring urgent cases are addressed promptly.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #23Feedback

2Reliability

If all vehicles are serviced in parallel, then total maintenance is achieved, but resource allocation becomes inefficient

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvemaintenance coverageVSAvoidresource allocation complexity
Core Design Contradiction:
ReliabilityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The system segments the fleet into priority groups based on health scores and alert severities. Rather than treating all vehicles uniformly, the worklist generator creates differentiated service queues that divide maintenance tasks according to urgency, allowing resources to be allocated efficiently across high-priority and routine maintenance cases.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #1Segmentation

3Ease of operation

If maintenance is performed based on fixed schedules, then planning simplicity is maintained, but responsiveness to actual machine conditions deteriorates

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvescheduling simplicityVSAvoidresponsiveness to machine conditions
Core Design Contradiction:
Ease of operationVSAdaptability or versatility

Solution Approach 1:

The system changes the scheduling parameter from fixed time-based intervals to dynamic condition-based thresholds. Instead of servicing vehicles at predetermined intervals, the system monitors health scores and alert severities, triggering maintenance actions when parameters indicate actual need, thereby adapting schedules to real machine conditions while maintaining operational simplicity through automated decision rules.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #35Parameter changes

Data Source

PatentEP3451300B1Methods and apparatus to monitor work vehicles and to generate worklists to order the repair of such work vehicles should a machine failure be identified
Publication Date: 2021.11.17 DEERE & CO
  • EP3451300B1 patent drawingFigure 1
  • EP3451300B1 patent drawingFigure 2
  • EP3451300B1 patent drawingFigure 3

AI summary

Methods and apparatus to monitor work vehicles and to generate worklists to order the repair of such work vehicles should a machine failure be identified are disclosed. An apparatus includes an interface to access a first and second alerts from first and second work vehicle; an alert scorer to generate first and second scores for the respective first and second alerts; a machine health score determiner to determine first and second machine health score for the respective first and second work vehicles based on the first score and the first weighting factor and the second score and the second weighting factor; and a worklist generator to generate a worklist indicating that the second work vehicle is to be repaired prior to the first work vehicle based on at least one of the first and second machine health scores or an associated first and second classifications.