Remote maintenance system
AssigneeCanon Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorsNobuaki Ogushi, Hirohisa Ohta, Yoshito Yoneyama, Masaya Ogura
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Factories (102-104) have host computers (107) for monitoring industrial equipments (106). Each host computer (107) is connected to a management host computer (108) on a vendor (101) side through the internet (105). The host computer (107) on the factory side detects occurrence of a trouble of the industrial equipment (106) and notifies the vendor side of status information representing a trouble state. In response to this, the host computer (108) on the vendor side notifies the factory side of response information representing a countermeasure against the trouble state.
Claims14
1-30. (canceled)
A remote maintenance system for industrial equipment connected to an intranet, said system comprising:
- a first computer for receiving, through an internet, information on an abnormal state of the industrial equipment from a monitor apparatus, which monitors the industrial equipment;
- a database for storing information received by said first computer and for storing information on a countermeasure against the abnormal state;
- and
- a second computer which is connected to the intranet, for accessing said database, for referring to information stored in said database, and for inputting information on the countermeasure into said database.
A monitor apparatus for monitoring a plurality of industrial equipment, said apparatus comprising:
- receiving means for receiving, through an intranet, information on an abnormal state from each of the plurality of industrial equipment;
- and
- transmission means for transmitting, through an internet, information on the abnormal state of each of the plurality of industrial equipment to a plurality of remote maintenance systems corresponding to the plurality of industrial equipment.
A remote maintenance method for industrial equipment performed by a system connected to an intranet, said method comprising:
- a reception step of receiving, through an internet, information on an abnormal state of the industrial equipment from a monitor apparatus, which monitors the industrial equipment;
- a first storing step of storing information received in said reception step in a database;
- a second storing step of storing information, which is input to a computer connected to the intranet, on a countermeasure against the abnormal state in the database;
- and
- a provision step of providing information stored in the database to a computer connected to the intranet.
A monitoring method performed by a monitor apparatus for monitoring a plurality of industrial equipment, said method comprising steps of:
- receiving, through an intranet, information on an abnormal state from each of the plurality of industrial equipment;
- and
- transmitting, through an internet, information on the abnormal state of each of the plurality of industrial equipment to a plurality of remote maintenance systems corresponding to the plurality of industrial equipment.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.