WO2003087971A2

WO2003087971A2 - Operating costs tracking system and method

Info

Publication number: WO2003087971A2
Application number: PCT/IB2002/001196
Authority: WO
Inventors: Gareth Jones; Ben Daw; Alan Richardson
Original assignee: Sema Uk Ltd.; Schlumberger Malco, Inc.
Priority date: 2002-04-12
Filing date: 2002-04-12
Publication date: 2003-10-23
Also published as: AU2002253439A1; WO2003087971A3; AU2002253439A8

Abstract

A method of using a computer processor for managing operating costs for company asset such as vehicle fleet, building or equipment by tracking each maintenance task for the asset, determining the cost of the maintenance task (fig. 3), identifying warranty issues related to the maintenance task (fig. 3), claiming for warranty indemnification if warranty issues have been identified (fig. 3), and updating the operation costs by inputting the maintenance task cost and outputting the indemnification received from warranty (fig. 3).

Description

OPERATING COSTS TRACKING SYSTEM AND METHOD

The present invention relates to the field of tracking operating costs for company assets such as vehicle fleet, supporting buildings or equipment infrastructure. The present invention relates more particularly to a system and method for enabling an operator to dynamically track the operating costs and more specifically to track the maintenance costs.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION The processes described use vehicles as an example but apply equally to any company assets such as buildings or non-vehicle equipments. Tracking operating costs is essential when running a fleet of vehicles such as buses, lorries, aircraft, etc. To improve the on-going need to increase profitability, companies within the passenger transit industry need to control operating costs and use of resources and maximize revenue earning potential for example by increasing schedules and service delivery. Therefore, there is a prerequisite to clearly identify the operating cost of the vehicles to identify possible cost reductions. Operating costs are mainly based on staff expenses, fuel consumption and maintenance costs. The maintenance costs for a vehicle could represent an important proportion of total costs due to the costs of purchasing and managing the materials, the engineering labour costs and due to the time of immobilization of the vehicle because a vehicle produces revenue only when it is running. For that reason, it is important while tracking operating costs to track maintenance time and costs. If the maintenance work comes about due to a part failing under warranty, part or all of the maintenance costs could be re-charged to the manufacturers of the vehicles or the supplier of the failing parts. Therefore tracking maintenance costs also implies tracking warranty claims. Today, the transit industry is still relatively under-equipped in terms of computerisation mainly using un-integrated legacy systems for vehicle management.

No system using computer processors presently exists to integrate all facets of operating costs and manage dynamically such costs and particularly the maintenance costs and the warranty re-charges. Therefore, the present invention proposes a method, which integrates many facets of operating costs.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a method of using a computer processor for managing operating costs for company asset such as vehicle fleet, building or equipment, the method comprising the following steps:

- tracking each maintenance task for said asset; - determining the cost of said maintenance task;

- identifying warranty issues related to said maintenance task;

- claiming for warranty indemnification if warranty issues have been identified; and

- updating said operating costs by inputting said maintenance task cost and outputting the indemnifications received from warranty issuer(s) .

Following an other object of the invention, tracking the maintenance task comprises the following step:

- obtaining and logging each maintenance order comprising the operations required and the material issued.

Following an other object of the invention, determining the cost of said maintenance task comprises the following steps:

- identifying the material issued in the maintenance order;

- tracking the price of said materials part; - tracking the corresponding labour costs. Following an other object of the invention, identifying warranty issues comprises the following steps:

- identifying the defective material from the material issued in the maintenance order; - tracking for each defective material the existence of potential warranty claim.

Following an other object of the invention, tracking for each defective material the existence of a potential warranty claim comprises the following steps: - checking if said asset is under warranty; and if not

- checking if said defective material belongs to a major component, such as an engine if the asset is a vehicle, and if yes checking if said major component is under warranty; and if not

- checking if said defective material as such is under warranty. Following an other object of the invention, the warranty issuer to whom the warranty claim should be directed is:

- the asset manufacturer if the asset is under warranty;

- the major component manufacturer if the defective material belongs to a major component under warranty and if the asset is not under warranty;

- the defective material manufacturer if either asset warranty or major component warranty could not apply and if the material is under warranty.

Following an other object of the invention, claiming for warranty indemnification comprises the following steps:

- identifying the costs related to such defective material;

- sending a warranty form with the amount of indemnification claim corresponding to the related costs to the warranty issuer with eventually the defective material attached. Following an other object of the invention, identifying the costs related to such defective material comprises the identification of the direct costs such as the price of the defective material and the identification of the indirect cost such the lost of income from said asset, for example the time the vehicle is off the road if the asset is a vehicle.

An embodiment of such invention will be described below, as an example, in connection with the attached drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is a simplified block diagram of a system in accordance with the present invention for dynamically managing vehicle fleet operating costs;

FIG. 2 is a simplified block diagram of the sub- system of fig. 1 related to the management of the maintenance cost; FIG. 3 is a flow diagram of a warranty program manager component of the system of FIG. 2.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION Although the invention is primarily described with respect to the bus industry, it is understood that the system according to the present invention may likewise be advantageously employed in other air, water or land based vehicle operations such as the commercial trucking industry. Also, the system can likewise advantageously be employed in non commercial vehicles and more generally for any kind of company assets. As schematised in FIG. l, the operating cost tracking system for a bus company which operates a bus fleet 10 is mainly based on a program manager located in a remote central server 1 , which processor operates various program modules each of which receives and processes through relational databases 4 inputs from various parts of the company logged in with appropriate terminals 3 connected to the remote server 1 via an appropriate telecommunication network 2. The modules use so called Graphical User Interfaces GUI which present plurality of icons and predetermined zones to be filled up which are displayed on the screen of the terminals and which can be selected or completed via keyboard or mouse. Each module processes a certain kind of cost, which is then recapitulated and displayed in real time by the program manager through the appropriate GUI. Such modules cover all contributions to the operating costs such as the fixed asset, labour costs, fuel duty, vehicle acquisition or leasing, maintenance, etc. The maintenance module tracks all maintenance operations on the buses from used oil change to repairing broken components or materials or manufacturer recall. This module will be more particularly described with respect to FIG.2. Each time a vehicle of the fleet requires maintenance work, for example after an engine defect, a tyre defect or more basically a scheduled maintenance operation such as an oil change, there is a maintenance task to be processed by the maintenance module.

For the maintenance module, each vehicle maintenance task is defined by one (or more) maintenance order. A maintenance order is created or modified by engineering staff, usually a service professional of the transport company, at a local repair or service location by logging vehicle repair and service information using local communications terminal 3 which includes a specific GUI that allows the user to enter data using an interactive data entry screen and keyboard/ mouse tools. In addition planned orders for such things as regular preventive maintenance, can be generated from pre-determined plans. A maintenance order may include, for example, a vehicle identifier, an equipment type indicator, reference of material parts needed for the maintenance work, date-in-building indicator, type-of-service-required indicator, an availability prediction, localization of the vehicle, remarks, etc.

Each maintenance order receives a number and then is processed by the maintenance program for performing automatically a certain number of actions, such as checking the availability of the spare parts in the store location and reservation of required materials, checking of available capacity in the nominated work areas and calculation of planned order costs based on materials and estimated labour requirements. These actions correspond to specific subroutines such as maintenance organizational management, material issue, etc. which will not be described in more details.

The maintenance order is also used for automatically updating the maintenance cost of the corresponding vehicle and therefore its operating costs. Such maintenance costs comprise, for example, the cost of the materials issued to the work order, the corresponding mechanic labour hours, the cost of the repair location and its equipment, and also the cost of immobilization of the vehicle (VOR for Vehicle Off the Road). For the elaboration, the maintenance program accesses specific costs and tariffs tables, which could be internal tables but also external tables such as for example suppliers' tables, which are then accessed through private or public networks such as the Internet and the World Wide Web. This task is handled by sub-routines related to warranty management. Further, the maintenance order is used to automatically determine the possibility of claiming for warranty and therefore to reduce the cost of maintenance.

Potential warranty claims are automatically identified within the system as a result of material issues made in maintenance orders. They are raised initially as warranty requests, which may then be (manually) adjusted, cancelled or confirmed and turned into valid claims. This will result in the printing (or electronic transmission assuming the appropriate software is in place) of industry accepted warranty claim forms. Full claim tracking and monitoring for both reclaimed costs (including integrated billing) and replacement parts are catered for, as is the printing of warranty return labels in the defined warranty stores area.

In addition to the above automatic generation process, warranty claims can be created directly through the keyboard as required. When the claim is settled, the indemnification received if any is then deducted from the maintenance cost of the corresponding vehicle. Claiming warranty is important as when materials are allocated and issued to work orders to repair vehicles or any other system maintained object, invariably this is the result of a previously fitted part failing. Where these failed parts are still within the warranty period stipulated by the manufacturer, there is a need for the system to ensure that this is automatically recognized and that a tracking process is in place to progress potential claims to successful conclusion. This will usually result in return of failed parts, receipt of replacement parts and optional billing of compensation claims.

The warranty management program is run automatically each time a maintenance order is created or set to run at regular intervals and examines all stock issues made since the last execution and establishes whether or not a warranty claim can legitimately be made for any failed part identified as a result of the issue. This is further enhanced by a warranty-warning message being provided to the user real time via the GUI, to identify possible warranty claims at the point of issue. This process of identifying whether or not a warranty claim could be made goes through a logical decision making process to achieve this as follows: If the vehicle that the issue was made to is under warranty, a warranty request is raised under the terms of the vehicle warranty. If the vehicle is out of warranty a search is made down the vehicle equipment hierarchy, as at the time of issue, looking for a fitted component (e.g. Chassis, Body, Engine, transmission etc.) that is relevant to the type of material issued and if one is found that is under warranty, then a warranty request is raised under the terms of that warranty. If the vehicle and its fitted components are out of warranty then the system searches for the previous issue of the same material made to the same vehicle, same fitting position etc. If one is found for which the warranty conditions are still in effect then a warranty request under the terms of the material warranty, is raised.

Therefore if either the vehicle, the fitted component and the material are all out of warranty, then no warranty request is generated and the warranty management program finishes, otherwise the warranty management program issues a warranty request.

If such a request is approved, an official warranty claim is created from the request. If it has not already been addressed at the request assessment stage, at this point the user will have the opportunity of deciding: to return the defective part, to ask to have the part replaced or an alternative part supplied, to ask to have a replacement part or cash alternative (or both), to ask for the reimbursement of labour or VOR costs, etc. This approval process can be carried out individually or collectively. In addition associated materials and labour costs incurred on maintenance orders can be generated, and individual claims can be 'drawn together' onto a central collective claim by warranty provider. Once the claim details have been established and saved, this will result in the generation of warranty claim forms, which can be printed or transmitted electronically (with supporting software) to the warranty provider. The warranty stores will then send a claim and part (assuming it is to be returned) to the warranty provider by the appropriate means.

A consolidated warranty claim settlement transaction will then be used to process the claims to completion Any adjustments to be made as a result of negotiation with the warranty provider are recorded on the claim and the status advanced when agreed.

The agreed billable costs will then be picked up by the period end billing run and billing documents raised. Finally when the replacement part is received it is recorded against the claim and a stock receipt transaction is posted to the appropriate stores location.

Throughout the above processes a warranty reporting facility is available to list and analyse selected request/ claims in a variety of different ways.

Each time an indemnification is received from the warranty provider, the information is entered into the warranty claim management program through the appropriate interface and then automatically the corresponding operating cost of the vehicle is reduced by the corresponding sum.

The warranty management program will now be described with respect to figure 3.

As described, the first step is the creation of a warranty request.

All claim requests have a unique sales document type. Claim requests are generated automatically by the background process

(or manually) using a specific claim request transaction program.

When claim requests are generated (either automatically or manually) they have an initial status setting indicating potential claim request raised. Requests are identified and generated automatically as a result of new material issues made to maintenance orders, but can be raised manually should they be required.

First, the material is checked regarding its relevance for warranty claim. Such a check could be based on the nature of the material, of its cost, but also from maintenance history.

If the material is considered as "warranty relevant", then the following step is to determine if the vehicle is under warranty. From the vehicle identifier, a Warranty vehicle equipment table and a Vehicle equipment operating table are addressed. The Warranty vehicle equipment table records data on the warranty terms and conditions of the vehicle and its equipment and the Vehicle equipment operating table records data on the history of the vehicle and its equipment (age, mileage, number of running hours, etc.). Such Vehicle equipment operating table is updated periodically for example regarding the mileage of the vehicle. The terms of warranty are derived from the Master Warranty field on the vehicle equipment record. Such terms of warranty (age of vehicle, mileage, etc.) are then compared to the vehicle records. If the terms apply then the vehicle is under effective warranty. Therefore a vehicle type warranty claim request will be generated.

The warranty provider assigned to the request will be the vehicle warranty provider as defined on the vehicle equipment record When a "warranty relevant" material is issued to a maintenance order for a vehicle that has no warranty then the next step is to check if such material belongs to a major component fitted (e.g. engine, transmission, etc.). This relevance is decided by the checking a table called Material Group Equipment Hierarchy. Then if the material belongs to such a major component, the vehicle component record is addressed to obtain the terms of warranty of such component (age of engine, mileage, etc.) and to compare them to the component operating records. If the terms apply then the component is under effective warranty. Therefore a component type warranty claim request will be generated. The warranty provider assigned to the request will be the component warranty provider as defined on the vehicle component record. The terms applied to the request are derived from the Master Warranty field on the same record.

If the vehicle does not have vehicle or component warranties in effect, then the issue may fall under the terms of material warranty. Material warranty claim requests will be generated when any "warranty relevant" material is issued to a vehicle that has no warranties either at vehicle level or at vehicle component level.

The terms of any material warranties are held on the appropriate information records defined for each vendor of each material. If the terms apply then the material is under effective warranty. Therefore a material type warranty claim request will be generated.

The warranty provider assigned to the request will be the material warranty provider as defined in the appropriate information record. The terms applied to the request are derived from the associated master warranty record. If no warranty claim could be found on the ordered material then the program finishes, if not a claim request is then further processed. Once a claim request has been created it will be given an initial status setting. The clai request is then processed. From this point there is no difference in the processing of automatic or manually generated claim request.

Therefore a claim request can be amended using a transaction and have additional costs added to it. Further a claim request can be cancelled; this is done by setting the status on the request to a value denoting 'cancellation'. Creation of a warranty request from the above process will result in the printing of a warranty return label in the nominated warranty store area, ready to be attached to the defective part once returned to the store for assessment. The failed part once removed from the vehicle will be returned to the warranty stores to tie up with the claim request for assessment (supported by a return to stores stock movement). The status of the warranty request will then be set to reflect that this stage has happened and the claim is available for assessment/ approval. Such a decision is taken by the user for example by using a change status icon on a request header screen.

The status of a request should be advanced to reflect this. Saving the request should cause a return label to print.

Then the next step will be approving the claim request.

Once the returned part has been assessed and the claim approved the status of the request must be changed to reflect this so that the actual claim can be raised.

Once the request has been approved it needs to be converted to a full claim. The next step of the process is then the creation of a claim. All claims are given a unique sales document type. Creation with reference will be the usual option for creating warranty claims, because it bases a claim on a previously processed request and maintains a link for information and tracking. This can be done individually or collectively. All the request details are copied over to the claim, at this point changes can be made to the claim for example cost could be added/removed or defects could be changed and claim lines for associated materials used or labour time incurred can be generated by reference to the maintenance order in question. When creating with reference only approved requests can be processed. In addition to the above, it should be noted that warranty claims could be directly created without the need for a warranty request. The process for manual claim creation is the same as manual request creation detailed previously. When a claim is created it will be given an initial status setting. When the claim is saved a warranty claim form will be generated automatically for forwarding to the warranty provider as defined above. During the claim process it is possible to cancel, or put a temporary hold on, a claim by setting the status to the appropriate value. Further claimable costs can be added to a claim at any time prior to billing using the corresponding transaction.

If the faulty part is required to be returned to the warranty provider, the claim status needs to be changed to reflect this and an outbound delivery should then be created using the claim settlement transaction, to issue the part from warranty stores and send the part with the claim. After the claim and eventually the faulty part are returned to the warranty provider, some negotiations between the company and the warranty provider may take place. Once agreement has been reached with the warranty provider the claim should be amended to reflect the details agreed and the status changed accordingly.

If and when the warranty provider sends a replacement part then an 'Inbound Delivery' should be created using the claim settlement transaction to book the item into the appropriate storage location with a reference to the claim number. For materials that have specific and unique master warranties defined on their equipment records, this movement can amend the master warranty on the equipment record to reflect any reduced warranty offered on the replacement part if applicable. Then automatically the maintenance program module processes the price of such replacement part to come into deduction of the maintenance cost of such a vehicle.

If no credit is required and the claim consists of a replacement part only then the claim can now proceed to a completed status.

The agreement made with the warranty provider may be that instead of providing a replacement part, a credit for the full or partial value of the faulty part will be allowed. If this is the case then the line for the replacement part on the claim must be cancelled and an additional credit item added (or an existing one amended to reflect the agreement with the provider) .

If the agreement reached with the provider is that no credit or a replacement part will be given then the claim is cancelled by changing the status. If the claim has a line or lines on it that require credit from the warranty provider then a "Billing document" needs to be raised using the claim settlement transaction.

The billing document is automatically generated and sent to the warranty provider to complete the claim already posted. After the billing document has been generated and the invoice generated and sent to warranty provider to recover the amount owing, the final stage is to record when the payment has been received. Then automatically the maintenance program module processes the amount received to come into deduction of the maintenance cost of such a vehicle.

Once the replacement parts and credit have been received the claim should be marked as being complete. The warranty process related to the maintenance order is now complete. As described, the warranty management module is a powerful tool that allows requests/ claims to be managed and tracked. It will show current status of selected requests/ claims and highlight bottlenecks in request/ clai processing. In addition it can provide summaries of historical warranty claim activity.

It is also capable of handling warranty tracking in relation to buildings and non vehicle equipment as well as vehicles and to deal with multiple types of warranty terms offered by the same warranty provider, for example different terms for new or refurbished materials, buildings or equipment. While the above description contains many specific details of the preferred embodiments of the present invention, these should not be construed as limitations on the scope of the invention, but rather are presented in the way of exemplification. Other variations are possible. Accordingly, the scope of the present invention should be determined not by the embodiments illustrated above, but by the appended claims and their legal equivalents.

For example the warranty management program could not only be based on the materials ordered in connection with the maintenance order entered into the program but also based on the vehicle history by addressing vehicle and equipment records which would include all maintenance events for a certain vehicle or equipment (either major component or material).

Such history records could allow detection of root cause problems or other systemic problems based on the pattern of recurring repair/ service actions for a particular vehicle or equipment. For example, frequent oil supplies could be indicative of an underlying engine problem.

Claims

CLAIMS What is claimed is:

[1] A method of using a computer processor for managing operating costs for company asset such as vehicle fleet, building or equipment, the method comprising the following steps:

- tracking each maintenance task for said asset;

- determining the cost of said maintenance task;

- identifying warranty issues related to said maintenance task; - claiming for warranty indemnification if warranty issues have been identified; and

- updating said operating costs by inputting said maintenance task cost and outputting the indemnifications received from warranty issuer(s).

[2] The method of claim 1 wherein tracking the maintenance task comprises the following step:

[3] The method of claim 2 wherein determining the cost of said maintenance task comprises the following steps:

- identifying the material issued in the maintenance order;

- tracking the price of said materials part;

- tracking the corresponding labour costs.

[4] The method of claim 2 wherein identifying warranty issues comprises the following steps:

- identifying the defective material from the material issued in the maintenance order;

- tracking for each defective material the existence of potential warranty claim.

[5] The method of claim 4 wherein tracking for each defective material the existence of a potential warranty claim comprises the following steps:

- checking if said asset is under warranty; and if not - checking if said defective material belongs to a major component, such as an engine if the asset is a vehicle, and if yes checking if said major component is under warranty; and if not

- checking if said defective material as such is under warranty.

[6] The method of claim 5 wherein the warranty issuer to whom the warranty claim should be directed is:

- the asset manufacturer if the asset is under warranty;

- the major component manufacturer if the defective material belongs to a major component under warranty and if the asset is not under warranty; - the defective material manufacturer if either asset warranty or major component warranty could not apply and if the material is under warranty.

[7] The method of any one of claims 4 to 6 wherein claiming for warranty indemnification comprises the following steps: - identifying the costs related to such defective material;

- sending a warranty form with the amount of indemnification claim corresponding to the related costs to the warranty issuer with eventually the defective material attached.

[8] The method of claim 7 wherein identifying the costs related to such defective material comprises the identification of the direct costs such as the price of the defective material and the identification of the indirect cost such the lost of income from said asset, for example the time the vehicle is off the road if the asset is a vehicle.