Abstract:
To provide a troubleshooting support system that has a function of retrieving a remedy based on a word in a user&#39;s speech. A system for providing a remedy for failure of a product composed of a plurality of parts comprises a unit for entering information about failure including a free word, an extracting unit for extracting keywords from the free word, a remedy database storing remedies for failures, and a unit for searching the remedy database using the extracted keywords. The remedy database is searched using keywords derived from a user&#39;s speech. Weights assigned to the respective keywords are applied to the hit remedies for calculating priorities of the remedies.

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION  
         [0001]    1. Field of the Invention  
           [0002]    The present invention relates to a system for providing a remedy for a failure of a product. In particular, it relates to a system that provides a remedy for a failure of a product composing a plurality of parts, such as a vehicle, in response to input of information on the failure.  
           [0003]    2. Description of the Related Art  
           [0004]    Reactions of repair shops or dealers to failures or troubles of a sophisticated product, such as a vehicle, depend on experience of service staff that deals with the failures. In order to enable staff with little experience to readily deal with a failure, an instruction manual may be prepared. However, it is burdensome to prepare repair manuals for products appearing one after another. Such burdensomeness is encountered when the manuals are to be updated by reflecting accumulated experiences.  
           [0005]    It may be contemplated that a database for the manual is provided on a computer network, and a service staff accesses the manual as required. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-160097 describes maintenance of an air conditioner or the like, in which a memory that stores know-how is provided, a weight of attribute information, such as an experienced staff, is stored therein, and a support staff is retrieved according to the weight, whereby the user and the support staff can cooperate with each other.  
           [0006]    Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-154848 describes a problem-solving support system. An input query description that is short of conditions is compensated for with an optimal condition extracted from similar cases that were solved in the past. A problem-solving process is executed for the input question thus made up for.  
           [0007]    A products, such as an automobile and motorcycle, that is composed of quite many parts and includes many movable parts shows various symptoms depending on the usage conditions, the length of usage, the maintenance condition or the like. When a user asks a repair shop, service center or the like to repair a product in a failure or trouble, he/she explains the trouble in words. Therefore, there is a need for a troubleshooting support system that has a function of retrieving an optimal remedy based on words in a user&#39;s speech.  
         SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION  
         [0008]    A system according to one embodiment of this invention is a system for providing a remedy for a failure of a product composed of a plurality of parts, comprising means for entering information about a failure, said information including at least a portion that is represented by one or more free words. The system includes extracting means for extracting keywords from the one or more free words, a remedy database for storing remedies for failures registered therewith, the database being searched according to keywords. The system further includes means for searching the remedy database using the extracted keywords, applying weights assigned to the respective keywords to the hit results for each of a plurality of remedies that are hit for calculating priorities of the plurality of remedies.  
           [0009]    According to this invention, the remedy database is searched using keywords extracted from a user&#39;s speech. Weights assigned to the respective keywords are applied to the hit results for calculating priorities of the remedies. Relations between remedies and the keywords substantially vary.  
           [0010]    According to one aspect of the invention, weights assigned to the respective keywords are applied to the hit results, and priority calculation is performed for two or more remedies. Thus, an appropriate remedy can be chosen.  
           [0011]    In one aspect of this invention, the support system further comprises a synonym database, and the keyword extracting means searches the synonym database using as a key one or more words included in the one or more free words. One or more synonyms of such words are also used as a key to search the synonym database. According to this aspect, the keyword searching can be performed using not only words in the user&#39;s speech but also the synonyms, and thus, the reliability of the support system is improved.  
           [0012]    In another aspect of the invention, the remedy database stores a value indicating an effectiveness of each of said remedies, and the value is updated when a corresponding remedy is actually applied and is effective. Therefore, the reliability of the support system is enhanced as it is used. 
       
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
       [0013]    [0013]FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an overall configuration of a troubleshooting support system according to this invention;  
         [0014]    [0014]FIG. 2 shows one example of a question entry screen displayed on a personal computer  10  at a service shop;  
         [0015]    [0015]FIG. 3 shows question entries at the service shop;  
         [0016]    [0016]FIG. 4 shows the question entries at the service shop, which are adapted for database search;  
         [0017]    [0017]FIG. 5 shows keyword hits for a remedy  3  to a failure;  
         [0018]    [0018]FIG. 6 shows a score calculated from the keyword hits for the remedy  3 ; and  
         [0019]    [0019]FIG. 7 shows a score calculated from the keyword hits for a remedy  15 .  
     
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS  
       [0020]    Now, an embodiment of this invention will be described with reference to the drawings. A system according to one embodiment comprises a personal computer  10  located at a repair shop, service center, dealer or the like and a server  20  connected to the computer  10  via a network. While the computer  10  is connected to the server  20  via the Internet in this embodiment, other networks may be adopted. In the embodiment described below, an automobile is taken as an example of a product, and the personal computer  10  is located at a service factory. The server  20 , which is located at a computer center of the automobile company, receives queries from personal computers  10  located at nationwide service factories via the Internet and replies to them after computation.  
         [0021]    Now, it is assumed that a customer asks a service factory to solve a trouble of an unstable engine start. Staff of the service factory asks the user about symptoms the car shows, and activates the browser of the personal computer  10  to access a website of a troubleshooting support system of the server  20 .  
         [0022]    [0022]FIG. 2 shows one example of a screen transmitted from the website and displayed on the browser of the personal computer  10 . The screen includes fields for entering bibliographic items of the car, that is, a field  101  for entering a popular name of the car, an entry field  103  for a model of the car, an entry field  105  for a type of the car, an entry field  106  for a model year of the car, an entry field  107  for classification of the transmission type, automatic transmission (AT) or manual transmission (MT), and an entry field  109  for the number of a failed part. In general, cars are redesigned every several years, and thus, cars called by the same popular name may be of different models. Therefore, these fields are essential for diagnosis of failures specific to a car.  
         [0023]    In addition, the entry screen includes a scroll field  111  for selecting a failed part, a scroll field  113  for entry of rough classification of the failed part, and a scroll field  115  for entry of a symptom of the car. In addition to these entry fields, according to the embodiment of this invention, there is provided an inquiry entry field  117  that allows the staff of the service factory to enter conditions, heard from the user, in which the failure or trouble occurs. In the example shown in FIG. 2, the inquiry entry field includes a road condition selection sub-field, a weather selection sub-field, an engine temperature entry sub-field, and a failure frequency entry sub-field.  
         [0024]    In one embodiment of the invention, the entry screen includes a field  119  for entering a symptom of the car in a free word. The free word field is intended for the symptom of the car that the user has told. The field enables a delicate nuance of the failure or trouble to be included in the query to the support system.  
         [0025]    When the service staff finishes entry of these items and clicks a transmission button on the screen, the entry data is transmitted to the server  20 . The server  20  has a support program installed therein that provides a remedy for a failure in response to a query. The block diagram of the server  20  shown in FIG. 1 illustrates functional blocks of such a support program.  
         [0026]    A question data receiving unit  11  receives the data transmitted from the personal computer  10 , passes data in the free word field to a free word fragmenting unit  13 , passes data in the failure situation (inquiry) field  117  to a synonym retrieving unit  15 , and passes data in the other fields to a keyword compiling unit  17 . The free word-fragmenting unit  13  has a document analysis function of fragmenting a free word into separate words. The document analysis function may be the one used in a translation program from Japanese to English, for example.  
         [0027]    The words derived from the free keyword and the words in the failure situation field  117  are passed to the synonym-retrieving unit  15 . The synonym-retrieving unit  15  searches a synonym database  27  using the words as keys. The synonym database  27  stores synonyms and quasi-synonyms of the respective words. The synonym-retrieving unit  15  passes, to the keyword-compiling unit  17 , the data in the failure situation field  117  and words resulting from fragmentation in the free word-fragmenting unit together with the synonyms and quasi-synonyms thus obtained. The keyword-compiling unit  17  compiles the bibliographic data of the car received from the question data-receiving unit and the words received from the synonym-retrieving unit  15  and passes them to a database-searching unit  19 .  
         [0028]    The database-searching unit  19  searches a troubleshooting (remedy) database  29  using the words as keys. The troubleshooting database  29  stores remedies relating to vehicle types, symptoms, failure situations or the like.  
         [0029]    The database is equivalent to a knowledge database that accumulates knowledge and experience of an experienced service staff. The remedies are each assigned words used for describing the vehicle types, symptoms, failure situations or the like as keywords. Searching the database is partially similar to searching for patent information or a technical document. However, it is significantly different in that the keywords used are words relating to symptoms of the car, failure situations, bibliographic information about the car or the like, rather than words included in the description of the remedy that is searched for.  
         [0030]    The retrieval results of the database-retrieving unit  19  are passed to a weighted calculation unit  21 . For each of the retrieved remedies, the weighted calculation unit multiplies the number of hit keywords by weights predetermined for the respective keywords to calculate a score for each of the remedies, and passes top several remedies to a summarizing and displaying unit  23 .  
         [0031]    The summarizing and displaying unit  23  edits the received top several remedies in the form of an html document and transmits the document to the personal computer  10  via the Internet. In this way, the service staff can obtain remedy candidates based on the experienced service staffs knowledge by transmitting to the server the information about the failure of the car including the free word obtained by conversation with the user.  
         [0032]    Now, referring to FIGS.  3  to  7 , a program executed by the server  20  will be described in detail. FIG. 3 shows data entered via the computer screen shown in FIG. 2 to be transmitted to the server  20 . FIG. 4 shows the data in FIG. 3 with the free word description “starter sounds without engine start” being fragmented into words by the free word fragmenting unit  13  and the words being extracted as keywords.  
         [0033]    [0033]FIG. 5 shows a result of the database-searching unit searching the troubleshooting database  29  after the synonym-retrieving unit  15  retrieves the synonyms of the keywords obtained by inquiry and derived from the free word. In this example, for a keyword “cold”, synonyms “first in the morning” and “winter” are retrieved. For a keyword “engine”, a word “starter” is retrieved, and for a keyword “starter sound”, an echo word “whine, whine” is retrieved.  
         [0034]    In one embodiment, the search of the database  29  is accomplished by detecting matches between the keywords shown in FIG. 5 and the keywords assigned to each of the three hundred remedies, for example, stored in the database.  
         [0035]    According to another embodiment, the database is searched using the keywords based on basic information in the table shown in FIG. 5 as keys. Then, for example, for each of the fifteen remedies that are hit, it is checked whether any hit is found for the keywords based on inquiry, the keywords derived from the free word and the synonyms used as keywords. By layering the search operation in this way, the search can be narrowed successively, and thus, the search rate can be increased. Depending on the size of the database, a three-layer or four-layer structure can be provided.  
         [0036]    In the rightmost column in FIG. 5, hit results of keywords for a remedy  3  (replacement of fuel pumps) are shown. The keywords are weighted according to the significance. FIG. 6 shows an example of the weights. In the basic information, a keyword relating to the model is assigned a weight of 0.9, a keyword relating to the failed part is assigned a weight of 0.5, and a keyword relating to the rough classification is assigned a weight of 0.5. A keyword derived from the free word is assigned a weight of 0.9, a keyword based on inquiry is assigned a weight of 0.7. As for a keyword from the synonym, a keyword relating to the time when the failure occurs is assigned a weight of 0.3, a keyword relating to the failed part is assigned a weight of 0.4, and a keyword relating to the abnormal sound is assigned a weight of 0.8.  
         [0037]    In this example, the effectiveness and retrieval frequency, which indicate effectiveness of the information, are assigned weights of 1.0 and 0.5, respectively. The information effectiveness is set reflecting a history of the remedy. These values are different from the weights assigned to the keywords in that they are assigned to each of the remedies. If the remedy is effective for a failure, the effectiveness is upgraded in response to feedback from the service shop. The retrieval frequency indicates the frequency of retrieval of the remedy and is significant in an embodiment in which hierarchical database search is performed. Each remedy includes these items, and thus, they are simply shown in terms of scores in the drawing.  
         [0038]    The weighted calculation unit  21  calculates a score for each keyword by multiplying the number of hits for the keyword by the weight assigned to the keyword. In the embodiment shown in FIG. 6, with respect to the keywords derived from the free word and the keywords obtained by inquiry, individual keywords are assigned the same weight, respectively. For the keyword derived from the free word, the number of hits is 2 and its weight is 0.9, and therefore, the score is 1.8. For the keyword obtained by inquiry, the number of hits is 3 and the weight is 0.7, and thus, the score is 2.1.  
         [0039]    For the keywords based on the synonym, different kinds of keywords are assigned different weights. The keyword relating to the time when the failure occurs is assigned a weight of 0.3, the keyword relating to the failed part is assigned a weight of 0.4, and the keyword relating to the abnormal sound is assigned a weight of 0.8.  
         [0040]    These weights may be set separately for each remedy or uniformly for all the remedies. To enhance effectiveness, each keyword is preferably assigned a weight adapted for the remedy.  
         [0041]    In the example shown in FIG. 6, the total score of the remedy  3  (replacement of fuel pump) is 9.5. FIG. 7 shows a hit result and the score of a remedy number  15  (checking voltage of electrical system) for the same question. The summarizing and displaying unit  23  transmits the top five remedies with their respective scores to the personal computer  10  in the form of an HTML document. Thus, the staff of the service shop can view a plurality of optimal remedies for the question and the respective scores on the computer. Instead of the scores, the summarizing and displaying unit may transmit priorities of the remedies, indicated by symbols A, B and C or the like, to the personal computer.  
         [0042]    In general, the service staff starts from the remedy of the highest score. If a remedy is effective for a failure, the service staff at the service shop connects the personal computer to the server  20 , activates the support system, invokes the feedback screen on the browser, and makes an entry that the remedy  3 , for example, was effective. In response to this, the server  20  updates the effectiveness of the remedy  3  from 1.0, the current value, to 1.1.  
         [0043]    In this way, in the troubleshooting support system according to this invention, the knowledge database that accumulates the knowledge and experience of an experienced service staff further learns effectiveness of the remedies for failures.  
         [0044]    A specific embodiment of this invention has been described above. However, this invention is not limited to the embodiments.