Management systems for evaluation and continuous improvement of workflows involving heavy-duty vehicles
A production asset monitoring system, for monitoring current operating states of one or more production assets, associates a respective state machine which each asset in the one or more production assets, where each state machine implements a plurality of operating states, out of which operating states at least one state is categorized as a productive state and at least one state is categorized as an unproductive state. The production asset monitoring system further comprises a sensor system configured to detect a current operating state for each state machine, and the production asset monitoring system is configured to aggregate the states of a plurality of assets into a report indicative of production asset utilization.
1 . A production asset monitoring system, for monitoring current operating states of one or more production assets in a project,
where the production asset monitoring system comprises a control unit arranged to associate a respective state machine with each asset in the one or more production assets, where each state machine implements a plurality of operating states, out of which operating states at least one state is categorized as a productive state and at least one state is categorized as an unproductive state,
where the production asset monitoring system further comprises a sensor system configured to detect a current operating state for each state machine, where the sensor system comprises at least one of:
one or more positioning systems associated with respective state machines,
one or more V2X communication systems associated with the respective state machines, and
one or more on-board vehicle sensor systems associated with the respective state machines,
where the control unit is further arranged to determine a correlation between one or more occupied states in one of the state machines with respect to the occupied states of another state machine, and to detect a dependency between two production assets based on the correlation, where the control unit is configured to aggregate the occupied states detected by the sensor system into a report indicative of production asset utilization, and wherein the control unit is further configured to identify inefficiencies in a production workflow based on the detected dependency and to dynamically adjust production asset utilization by:
reconfiguring transportation strategies or reallocating production assets to remedy the inefficiencies and improve overall efficiency of the project; and
triggering one or more changes in the current operating states of the one or more production assets based on reconfiguring or the reallocating.
2 . The production asset monitoring system according to claim 1 , where one or more state machines are implemented on respective portable wireless devices.
3 . The production asset monitoring system according to claim 1 , where one or more state machines are implemented on respective on-board vehicle control units.
4 . The production asset monitoring system according to claim 1 , where the production asset monitoring system is at least partly implemented on a remote server accessible via wireless link from the production assets and/or from associated wireless devices.
5 . The production asset monitoring system according to claim 1 , where a transition between two states of a first state machine in the production asset monitoring system is conditioned on a current state of an associated second state machine.
6 . The production asset monitoring system according to claim 1 , where the one or more production assets comprises an excavator, a conveyor belt, a wheel loader, and/or a dump truck.
7 . The production asset monitoring system according to claim 1 , where the states in at least one of the state machines comprises a transporting state, a loading state, an unloading state, and a waiting state, where the transporting state, the loading state, and the unloading state are categorized as productive states and the waiting state is categorized as an unproductive state.
8 . A computer implemented method executed in a production asset monitoring system, for monitoring current operating states of one or more production assets in a project, the method comprising:
associating a respective state machine with each asset in the one or more production assets,
where each state machine implements a plurality of operating states, out of which operating states at least one state is categorized as a productive state and at least one state is categorized as an unproductive state,
detecting a current operating state for each state machine based on output data from a sensor system configured to detect the current operating state for each state machine, where the sensor system comprises at least one of:
one or more positioning systems associated with respective state machines,
one or more V2X communication systems associated with the respective state machines, and
one or more on-board vehicle sensor systems associated with the respective state machines,
determining a correlation between one or more occupied states in one of the state machines with respect to the occupied states of another state machine,
detecting a dependency between two production assets based on the correlation,
aggregating the occupied states detected by the sensor system into a report indicative of production asset utilization,
identifying inefficiencies in a production workflow based on the detected dependency,
dynamically adjusting production asset utilization by reconfiguring transportation strategies or reallocating production assets to remedy the inefficiencies and improve overall efficiency of the project, and
triggering one or more changes in the current operating states of the one or more production assets based on reconfiguring or the reallocating.
9 . A remote server comprising processing circuitry arranged to execute the method according to claim 8 .
10 . A wireless device comprising processing circuitry arranged to execute the method according to claim 8 .