Data processing: financial – business practice – management – or co – Automated electrical financial or business practice or... – Inventory management
Reexamination Certificate
1995-11-27
2001-05-01
Cosimano, Edward R. (Department: 2161)
Data processing: financial, business practice, management, or co
Automated electrical financial or business practice or...
Inventory management
C340S870030, C340S988000, C700S090000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06226622
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention relates to devices and methods for tracking movement of moving objects such as people and equipment to track and determine productivity in a warehouse or the like, employing global positioning system (GPS). The present invention also relates to a devices and methods of tracking the activities (such as assigned tasks) of people to track and determine productivity in a warehouse or the like, employing a GPS. The present invention also relates to devices and methods of providing improved security and/or visitor tracking.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
People normally perform specific tasks as directed by supervisor personnel in a warehouse setting. In a more modem warehouse, such tasks are computer-generated. Productivity, especially employee productivity is determined by analyzing the tasks performed over time. There are limitations to the various aspects of these methods. There is a great need for a way to obtain precise information regarding movement, activity and current location of individuals and/or equipment and utilize such information to improve the warehouse efficiency.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The system of the present invention will gather exact time, activity and position information of an employee over a period of each work day and the task being worked on at that moment. These data can be analyzed to determine, for example, non-productive movements, and provide a better foundation of information for productivity payroll including the relative ‘difficulty’ of a task.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a method to track movement and activity of objects and individuals to analyze methods for improvement and creation of improved methods resulting from this tracking. It is a further object of the present invention to provide a method to graphically recreate position and activity over a period of time (in faster or slower than actual time) for analysis and review purposes. It is still a further object of the present invention to provide a method to track equipment movement to better determine repair/maintenance intervals. It is still a further object of the present invention to provide a method to use such data to perform more sophisticated incentive pay capabilities in an incentive pay environment. It is still a further object of the present invention to provide a method to use such data to provide improved security and safety policies and the like and to track and enforce such policies.
The method of tracking movement of a moving object to track and determine productivity of the present invention comprises the steps of: receiving a current position of said object via a global positioning system (GPS) signal; obtaining data including the current position and activity of the object; repeating the receiving and obtaining steps for a period of time to create positional movements and the activities for the period of time; overlaying the positional movements and the activities on a two or three dimensional map for the period of time; analyzing the positional movements and the activities of the map for the period of time; and determining the productivity of the object from the analyzed positional movements and the activities.
The method of the present invention includes the steps of: determining difficulty of the activities from the analyzed activities; and determining pay incentives. Additionally, the method includes determining non-productive movements and assigning the object to a next task based on the current position.
The method of the present invention further includes the steps of: learning a best method of performing the activities in an operation; and creating a computer simulation model identifying or predicting the best method based on a past performance of the operation.
The system of tracking movement of moving objects of the present invention includes: a plurality of devices, each device being associated with a respective moving object and adapted to receive a current position via a global positioning system (GPS) signal and transmit data including the current position and an activity of the object; and a host computer obtaining the data for a period of time to create positional movements and activities of the object for the period of time and overlaying the positional movements and the activities on a two or three dimensional map for the period of time for the basis of determining the productivity of the object from the positional movements and the activities.
The devices are selected from the set of a portable data terminal and a badge wherein the portable data terminal and the badge comprise: a radio frequency transmitter to transmit the data; and, a global positioning system (GPS) receiver.
The system of the present invention further includes: means for learning a best method of performing the activities in an operation; and means for creating a computer simulation model identifying or predicting a best method based on a past performance of the operation.
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Cosimano Edward R.
Morris Manning & Martin LLP
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