Patent ID: 7058508
Filing Date: 2006-06-06
Classification: G06Q

Abstract:
1. An automated building service broker communicatively linked to a plurality of building systems and to a plurality of service providers, each service provider deemed suitable for performing maintenance and repair on at least one of the building systems, comprising: a Global Positioning System (GPS) data processor for processing GPS data associated with the communicatively linked service providers, said GPS data corresponding to a geographic position; an event handler for responding to building system maintenance and repair events received from the communicatively linked building systems; and, a service provider selector for selecting a particular service provider to respond to a particular received maintenance and repair event received from a particular communicatively linked building system, the selection being based on (a) whether said selected service provider is suitable to perform required maintenance and repair on the particular communicatively linked building system, and (b) the geographic position of the particular service provider relative to the particular building system as reported by GPS data associated with the particular service provider and wherein the service provider selector is configured to query a selected service provider for a current geographic position, to identify a geographic position using Global Positioning System (GPS) data for said building system, to compare said geographic position of said selected service provider to said geographic position of said building system, said comparison indicating how close said selected service provider is to said building system, and to repeat said steps of querying and comparing to determine whether said selected service provider is traveling toward or away from said building system, how fast said selected service provider is traveling toward or away from said building system, and, based on whether said selected service provider is traveling toward or away from said building site and how fast said selected service provider is traveling toward or away from said building system, to determine when said selected service provider should arrive at said building system.