Patent ID: 6665581
Filing Date: 2003-12-16
Classification: G05B

Abstract:
A method for supporting maintenance for equipment for determining and anticipating where maintenance should be needed before a system is caused to be interrupted, including the steps ofmeasuring, at short intervals over a long time, data on cycle times, each of which is the time of one cycle of an operation of the equipment, and data on the operation times of the processes performed by components or apparatuses that affect the cycle times and storing them, retrieving data in a database in which the cycle times and the operation times of the processes are stored and specifying any cycle time that is longer than a reference cycle time, summing the operation times or a number of operation times that exceed a predetermined time during a specified period, determining which process may cause a problem among the processes of the apparatuses that affect the cycle times, based on the sum of the operation times that exceed a predetermined time during the specified period or the sum of the number of operation times that exceed the predetermined time during the specified period, and displaying data on the processes that may cause a problem.