Troubleshooting engine and method for using same
Contents
1. technician to receive information related to the defective product a memory device for storing at least some of the received information so that it can be referred to when assembling the repair guide and a multimedia library from which to draw prepared multimedia materials that may be used in multimedia repair guide assembly 0013 In another aspect the present invention is a dis tributed service system having a troubleshooting engine in communication with a database for storing historical repair and product design information that the troubleshooting engine may refer to in preparing a repair guide for use by a service technician attempting to perform repairs on a defec tive product The repair guide is preferably an interactive multimedia repair guide and information gathered during the interactive repair session is used to supplement the historical repair information in the database In a particularly preferred embodiment the system also includes a PPC analysis module for analyzing any PPC counts provided by the defective product and fed to the PPC analysis module 0014 In yet another aspect the present invention is a method of assisting a service technician attempting to repair defective product that includes the steps of providing a troubleshooting engine collecting information related to the product defect transmitting the information to the trouble shooting engine and using the information to assemble an interactive multi2. 3 US 2003 0065967 A1 TROUBLESHOOTING ENGINE AND METHOD FOR USING SAME 0001 This invention relates generally to the service and repair of defective products and more specifically to a system and method for the providing a network based interactive multimedia repair guide for use in addressing reported product defects at remote service facilities BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 0002 For many mass market that is very widely dis tributed consumer products the chain of product develop ment design production and distribution follows a familiar pattern The pattern is followed because sales of hundreds even thousands of the same or very similar products are expected to be sold through a great many retail stores Products are designed by one group of people manufactured by others perhaps even a different company entirely and then shipped for distribution and sale Distribution is usually through regional then local distribution centers and finally to the retail outlets where they will be sold In this type of market the people at one end of the chain often have very little direct contact with those at the other In any such scheme a certain number of product defects of uncertain origin are likely to go undiscovered until they appear at the retail level either before or after the product is sold to a consumer A customer who discovers a product defect can not possible know where in the chain the defect originated so problem
3. the system 100 may be replicated for ease of access or provided on a removable storage media such as a CD for use even if continuous communication is not possible or desirable Note also that certain POSs may be provided with more or less service relative to others or each permitted to have access to only a certain amount of information This may be a useful limitation where a particular POS also services the products of competitors 0023 Troubleshooting engine 301 is at the heart of the distributed service system 100 because it takes the informa tion stored and generated by the other system components and applies it to a process for assisting the service technician who is addressing the defective product Specifically troubleshooting engine 301 receives the report produced by PPC analysis module 401 and uses the defect prediction information contained in it along with the design and collective experience information on database 101 to assemble an interactive multimedia guide for use by the service technician so that problems can be quickly diag nosed and where possible repaired 0024 Note that in a preferred embodiment such as the one of FIG 1 dynamic knowledge database 101 trouble Apr 3 2003 shooting engine 301 and PPC analysis module 401 are preferable linked to one another and co located They may actually reside in the same physical device and share its resources The various POSs on the other hand are often re
4. C analysis module 401 and the various points of service POSs such as POS 501 POS 502 and POS 503 Communication network 201 is very likely to include the Internet and any necessary access channels but may also be where useful a local area network LAN a wide area network WAN a virtual private network VPN or some other public or private communication network The greatest advantage obtains however when the communication net work 201 selected is the most efficient and reliable way to connect the POSs and the other components of distributed service system 100 The Internet typically fulfills these criteria but may not always be the optimum network Of course the network does not have to be either homogenous or static and separate POSs may access the rest of the system by different and changing means 0022 Note that although three POSs are shown there could be any number very likely there are dozens even hundreds Some may be nearby others distant Some may be relatively permanent while others are mobile occasional or purposefully in existence only for a short time A POS may even effectively be in more than one location not shown such as where a product brought into one location is being remotely examined by a service technician in another Natu rally the nature of the network connection to each POS through communication network 201 may vary according to the aforementioned factors In some instances some or all of
5. US 20030065967A1 a2 Patent Application Publication co Pub No US 2003 0065967 A1 as United States Garcia et al 43 Pub Date Apr 3 2003 54 TROUBLESHOOTING ENGINE AND 52 US CL cere etaed 714 1 METHOD FOR USING SAME 76 Inventors Joel Garcia San Diego CA US 57 ABSTRACT Craig Arnush San Diego CA US T ga d PES 09 Te A system for using a troubleshooting engine to assemble an Tran San Diego C A US J Dilan interactive multimedia repair guide for assisting a service Celi San Diego C A US 2 technician in the repair of a defective product and a mehof t i of using the same The system includes a dynamic knowl Correspondence Address edge database for storing product history records relating to NOVAKOV DAVIS amp MUNCK defects reported concerning the product The database also A PROFESSIONAL CORPORATION contains design information related to the product for cor Docket Clerk relation with the defect reports and use in analyzing future PO Box 802432 reported defects The integrated quality management system DALLAS TX 75380 US also includes a product performance counter PPC analysis module that receives PPC data from an individual product 21 Appl No 09 967 874 generates a PPC profile based on the received data and compares the profile to stored design and historical PPC 22 Filed Sep 29 2001 profiles to produce a weighted prediction report of likely defects This report is transmitted to the trou
6. address problems and cure defects occurring in products that that they had no part in creating and that many times they may be only generally familiar with Moreover because thousands of units of a product may be manufactured and shipped in a short period of time there is a high probability that many of these technicians are independently addressing the same defects as other distant technicians and independently having to dis cover the same or similar solutions 0007 Reported defects may be real or result from the consumer s unrealistic expectations or inability to properly operate the product Real defects include both those endemic to the entire line of products perhaps due to a design or manufacturing flaw and those related only to certain indi vidual products or a relatively small set of the total number manufactured Whatever the type or origin of the defect this term herein meant to include both real and imagined defects unless otherwise specified or apparent from the context the myriad and scattered service technicians will have to address it with little outside guidance at least initially Although these technicians are free to call others or to contact the engineers or factory representatives they cannot efficiently engage in extensive research and study to determine the cause each and every reported problem and work out opti mum solutions As a result there exists little or no easy way to efficiently benefit from th
7. and a probability of accuracy estimate associated with each of the listed defects 0032 At step 225 the troubleshooting engine 301 receives the results of the PPC analysis in what may be referred to as a PPC analysis report This report generally comes from the PPC analysis module 401 but may also be received from the dynamic knowledge database 101 if it was previous compiled and stored there At this step any other relevant information such as the defective product report is also provided unless it has already been transmitted Note that the defective product report comes largely from the customer possible one interacting with a service technician that has been put into a recognizable form for use by the troubleshooting engine 301 Depending on its sophistica tion of course the troubleshooting engine 301 may use input only from a simple form filled out on a computer audio responses to standard questions or it may be able to accept natural language reports in either text or audio form or perhaps a through a combination of any of these methods 0033 Note that as the process 200 is being executed the service technician may be given the option to terminate it and simply proceed based on the information provided to that point step not shown This option may be useful where an obvious solution has become apparent Assuming this does not occur however at this point the troubleshooting engine 301 performs initial assembly of a mul
8. bleshooting Publication Classification engine which directs a multimedia application to transmit diagnosis and repair instructions to a service center techni Gly Inti CE ean n H02H 3 05 cian 100 ziot DYNAMIC KN OSULEDGG DATA CASE PPE TROUBLE SHOOTING ANALY sis Mod ULE ENGINE Corne rtand NETWORK Patent Application Publication Apr 3 2003 Sheet 1 of 3 US 2003 0065967 A1 00 DYNAMIC KN OWLE06E DATA BASE AW a PPC TROUBLE SHOOTING Andry 15 z MOD ALE ENGINE z UM Con macer NETWORK 503 S0 pos i Pos Zol FIGURE L GEM rA LS Patent Application Publication Apr 3 2003 Sheet 2 of 3 US 2003 0065967 A1 REce we DEFECTIVE PRooucr RE PRT RECEIVE PPE COUNT FRom DEFECTIVE S 80p cT PREPARE PPC PROFILE Fok le Feenves PRO SULT ANALY Ze PPC PROFILE And PREPARE REPORT T Ranimit AECORTS TO Tlou LLE SHOOTING ENGINE 7230 PREPARE L NETIA 7 MucTi MEDIA SERVICE Manuta SESSION P d LEVE 2 00 TRAN MIT MULTIMEDIA SeRNIte MAN Uk 7245 revise MUALTIMGDIA PRErENTATIOWNY Crase OUT SEINN FIGURE Z 295 fi RECORD IN DYN c e NO LEDGE DATA GALE Patent Application Publication Apr 3 2003 Sheet 3 of 3 US 2003 0065967 A1 pee ANALYSIS Movrre COMMUNICATE OAS MODULE SEI ASSY MULE ui A X pee a ee Cunt 730 A E Es MULTIMEDIA Zoo FIGURE
9. but at such time the multimedia session is no longer required As the service technician responds to the multimedia guide s queries the responses are transmitted back to the troubleshooting engine either as they are made or in a batch after a group of queries have been addressed 0035 The troubleshooting engine 301 receives the ser vice technician s responses step 240 and adds them to the data file 330 storing information related to the product whose repair is in process It also uses the information either by itself or cumulatively with other stored data to add to or amend the multimedia guide session step 245 The revised or supplemented guide is then transmitted back to the service center step 235 Steps 240 245 and 235 are repeated as often as necessary If at any time in the received responses step 240 there is an indication that the repair is complete the process moves on to completion and follow up step 250 Here the repair operation is closed out preferably including an analysis of the information stored in the current repair data files to make sure it is complete If not a follow up form is transmitted to the service center return to step 235 Here also the process steps 240 receiving a response from the service technician 250 session completion and 235 transmitting additional information to the service center may repeat as many times as necessary In some presumably rare instances a response received at
10. d products in contrast are less likely to be serviced in a widely distributed service system A PPC is an internal detector that can be used to detect the occurrence of a certain event in the product especially one that can be associated with a given defect The detector is associated with a counter in non volatile memory where the number of times a certain event occurs is tracked A time and data stamp or clock time may be associated with the PPC so that when an event occurs can be tracked as well or at least its frequency as related to device operation time A given device will nor mally have numerous PPCs each tracking the occurrence of different events For example in the mobile phone environ ment PPCs can be used to measure events such as dropped calls access attempt failure software and hardware resets and origination failures Each of these events is a symptom of course and not an actual defect In combination with statistics related to device operation such as call and standby time minutes being recharged etc however PPCs can be used to construct a profile of the device s operational life 0028 As mentioned above a PPC based profile is used in the diagnostic portion of the quality control process by comparing it to an analogous profile for a device known to be defect free or to profiles of devices having a known defect Based on this analysis alone it may be possible to predict with a measurable amount of certain
11. e experiences of others 0008 One way in which this issue has been addressed is through what may be referred to as a reporting and bulletin system Over the life of a commercial product any problems commonly encountered are usually reported to a central service site The problem report may include not only a description of the problem but a proposed solution or suggestion as well Or the central service facility may analyze common defects in an effort to come up with an appropriate way to address them When sufficient data has accumulated a service bulletin can be issued to all of the service technicians to provide them with guidance on how to deal with the particular problem covered in the bulletin 0009 Unfortunately this method however reliable is often too slow to react to problems encountered with newly released products especially in industries where new releases are frequent Only after sufficient time has elapsed will enough service bulletins have been issued to cover the vast majority of problems that are likely to be encountered When a product and the defects endemic to it is very new there is still very little to report in a service bulletin and the US 2003 0065967 A1 collection and dissemination process does take a certain amount of time As a result situations arise frequently where an unknown defect is reported at a service center and has to be handled without benefit of the collective experience that th
12. e service bulletins represent This will remain the case until a quantity of experience has been amassed reported and incorporated into a service bulletin This time delay however is unacceptable in industries such as the present wireless telephone industry where new product releases occur very frequently In such industries the state of the underlying technology often advances so fast that even products released in the past one or two years are nearing obsolescence By the time that recurring problems have been sufficiently documented and solutions proven it is very nearly time for release of the next generation of products 0010 Needed then is an inexpensive and efficient method of rapidly developing a centralized database along with an intelligent problem solving routine to enable widely distributed service centers to more quickly and efficiently be able to handle problem reports especially those associated with a new product release SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 0011 Itis an object of the present invention to provide an efficient problem resolution system and methodology usable by service technicians for assistance in the repair of defec tive products 0012 In one aspect the present invention is a trouble shooting engine including a multimedia session assembly module for assembling an interactive multimedia repair guide The troubleshooting engine further includes a com munication module for communicating with the service
13. le PPC counts may not be needed where the defect report appears to adequately define the problem 0038 The embodiments described above are preferred examples for implementing the invention and the scope of the invention should not necessarily be limited by this description The scope of the present invention is defined by the following claims In the claims 1 A troubleshooting engine comprising a communication module for receiving repair information relating to a product being repaired by a service tech nician a memory device in communication with the communi cation module for storing at least some of the received repair information and an assembly module for assembling a customized elec tronic repair guide based on the stored repair informa tion the repair guide for transmitting to the service technician and use in executing the repair 2 The troubleshooting engine of claim 1 wherein the repair guide is a multimedia repair guide 3 The troubleshooting engine of claim 2 further com prising a multimedia library for storing pre recorded multi media materials that may be used by the assembly module in assembling the multimedia repair guide 4 The troubleshooting engine of claim 1 wherein the repair guide is an interactive repair guide 5 The troubleshooting engine of claim 1 wherein the electronic repair guide is transmitted to the service techni cian through the communication module 6 The troubleshooting e
14. media repair guide for transmission to the service technician The method may further include provid ing an historical knowledge database in communication with the troubleshooting engine for storing historical repair data that also may be used by the troubleshooting engine in Apr 3 2003 assembling the repair guide Information gathered during execution of the repair process is provided to the database so that the historical data may be supplemented BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 0015 FIG 1 is a block diagram of an intelligent distrib uted service system incorporating the troubleshooting engine according to an embodiment of the present invention 0016 FIG 2 is a flow chart illustrating an embodiment of a distributed service system repair process according to an embodiment of the present invention and 0017 FIG 3 is a block diagram illustrating the major components of an exemplary troubleshooting engine con figured in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 0018 FIGS 1 through 3 discussed below and the various embodiments used to describe the principles of the present invention in this patent document are by way of illustration only and should not be construed in any way to limit the scope of the invention 0019 FIG 1 is a block diagram of an intelligent distrib uted service system 100 incorporating a troubleshooting engine 301 according to an embodime
15. motely located and connected to the remainder of system 100 by communication network 201 This configuration is not required however and in an alternate embodiment a POS not shown may be nearby and directly connected or even share the same physical unit Likewise dynamic knowledge database 101 troubleshooting engine 301 and PPC analysis module 401 may be remote located from one another and if so may rely on communication network 201 as well 0025 Turning to FIG 3 there appears a block diagram illustrating the major components of an exemplary trouble shooting engine 301 configured in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention Troubleshooting engine 301 includes a communication module 340 for sending and receiving communications through the commu nications network 201 through which it maintains contact with one or more POS such as POS 501 shown here Note again that communications network 201 may include seg ments of different communications networks including the Internet a VPN satellite network or the like that is capable of handling multimedia communications between trouble shooting engine 301 and point of service 501 Generally this communication channel will be the one through which the interactive multimedia repair guide session is conducted although any other channel may be used as well for example one established through PPC analysis module 401 as nec essary or desirable under the circumstances P
16. ngine of claim 1 wherein the communication module receives the repair information through a communications network 7 The troubleshooting engine of claim 6 wherein the communications network is the Internet 8 A distributed service system for assisting service tech nicians in performing repairs on a product comprising a database for storing historical information related to making repairs on product the historical information comprising product repair information reported by a service technician after performing repairs on another product similar to the product being repaired and a troubleshooting engine in communication with the data base for receiving repair information from the service technician and assembling a repair guide based at least in part on the received information and on the historical information stored in the database 9 The system of claim 8 further comprising a product performance counter PPC analysis module for receiving PPC counts from the product and using them to assemble a PPC report wherein the troubleshooting engine is in com US 2003 0065967 A1 munication with the PPC analysis module to receive the PPC report and assembles the repair guide at least in part based on the received PPC report 10 The system of claim 8 wherein the repair guide is an interactive multimedia repair guide 11 The system of claim 10 wherein the interactive multimedia repair guide prompts the service technician execu
17. nt of the present invention Note the present invention is directed both to a troubleshooting engine specifically and as well to its appli cation in a system such a distributed service system 100 Distributed service system 100 includes dynamic knowledge database 101 which is a constantly updated knowledgebase of information relating to previously encountered defects again real and imagined along with both proposed and proven solutions for addressing them Knowledge database 101 is updated both automatically by system 100 and manually by engineers and service personal as new prob lems are encountered and their solutions developed Dynamic knowledge database 101 is preferably an orga nized database of an organization s entire collective reme dial action experience In part this experience is documented and collected as in the past by service technicians generat ing defect reports that are submitted to a central department for analysis In addition however certain information is collected automatically as the repair process is interactively guided by the by troubleshooting engine 310 0020 Complimenting dynamic knowledge database 101 is PPC analysis module 401 PPC analysis module 401 receives input obtained from the defective product itself including though not limited to the contents of a product s product performance counters PPCs Armed with this data PPC analysis module 401 prepares a product profile based on the PPC conten
18. of claim 13 further comprising the step of comparing the received repair information to the data stored on the database to determine at least one possible defect cause 17 The method of claim 16 wherein the comparing step results in the determination of a plurality of possible defect causes and further comprising the step of assigning a predicted likelihood that any one of the possible defect causes will prove to be the cause of the defect in the product being repaired similar 18 The method of claim 17 wherein the multimedia repair guide consists of a number of separate segments to be presented in a particular order and wherein the particular presentation order is determined at least in part by the predicted likelihood assigned in the assigning step
19. referably communications module 340 is capable of transmitting and receiving through a variety of network configurations and may in fact be capable of quickly switching from one to another if a certain channel is for some reason interrupted or unavailable 0026 Troubleshooting engine 301 also includes a multi media service manual assembly module 320 a multimedia library 310 and current repair file 330 When a problem report is received and processed see FIG 2 and the discussion of it below the results are sent to troubleshoot ing engine 301 either through a direct connection if the basic components of the distributed service system 100 see FIG 1 are physically co located with troubleshooting engine 301 or through communications network 201 Any other relevant information may also be sent to troubleshoot ing engine 301 at this time if it has not already been transmitted This information is stored in current repair files 330 There may of course be many repair sessions being conducted simultaneously and current repair files 330 main tain data relating to each of them for use by any of the system 100 components as needed Session assembly mod ule 320 for example uses this information to assemble an interactive multimedia service manual customized for the particular product being addressed and for the defect symp toms encountered as reported or as generated by the PPC analysis Although current repair files 330 will ordina
20. rily not themselves store all of the of the multimedia service manual used in a given session the files will usually maintain a record of what content has been transmitted to point of service 501 and also the responses received in return Note again that although only one point of service is shown there could be any number of them Processor 350 under the direction of control program 360 refers to current US 2003 0065967 A1 repair files 330 in order to properly direct the session assembly module 320 in assembling the multimedia repair session for example by indicating which suggestion to make or what additional information to request Finally multime dia library 310 contains various pre developed multimedia presentation content for use by session assembly module 320 in preparing an ongoing multimedia session 0027 Turning now to FIG 2 there appears a flow chart illustrating an embodiment of a distributed service system repair process 200 according to an embodiment of the present invention Initially START it is presumed that products are provided with product performance counters PPCs either at manufacture or by retrofit The product may be any type of product but the process of the present invention is most advantageously employed in connection with mass distribution consumer electronics products such as mobile phones computers personal digital assistants PDAs televisions and similar products Large custom ize
21. s perceived at this level are generally first dealt with the retail outlet where the item was purchased or a local service center Unfortunately these members of the chain are the ones most distant from the design and manufacturing groups where the defects were very likely introduced 0003 Moreover mass market products are ubiquitous in the modern world Where once a single electrical device such as a radio television or telephone might be among a family s most prized possessions many homes are now filled with literally dozens of such devices Correspondingly the number of retail outlets at which electrical devices such as mobile phones personal digital assistants PDAs cal culators computers DVD players and the like are sold has also increased dramatically Such retail outlets may no longer specialize in a particular line of electrical devices but may sell them as part of a wide selection of household goods 0004 A typical feature of modern retailing however is the consumer s ability to bring a previously purchased prod uct back to the retailer and obtain a refund of the purchase price or some other consideration This works to the con sumer s advantage especially when a defective product has been purchased It may also work to the advantage of the manufacturer when instead of employing extensive and expensive measures to ensure every device is in perfect working order an easy return or exchange process means tha
22. shed by a service technician to an appro priate service center terminal provided for the purpose In an alternate embodiment applicable to mobile phones and other communicative products the customer may be provided with a number or electronic address to contact in the event the product s performance appears to be below an accept able standard In this embodiment the product must of course be working well enough to establish such contact When contact is made the PPC count may be downloaded through whatever communication channel is being used preferably after the customer somehow indicates their per mission to do so In yet another embodiment the device can be connected to a properly configured personal computer and the PPC counts automatically transmitted over an Inter net connection 0031 At step 220 a PPC algorithm formulated for use in analyzing the PPC counts when they are received is applied to the collected product counts and a result obtained The PPC algorithm may originally have been written using design specific action and predictive error analysis but is preferably updated on a regular basis to adjust for experi ence In a preferred embodiment the system 100 is capable of updating the algorithm automatically based on the results of sessions conducted and any other data with which it is provided As described above the result preferably includes both a list of possible defects corresponding to these col lected data
23. step 240 will result in a re opening of the repair process When it is determined at step 250 that the process 1s completed the session is completed and any appropriate historical infor mation is stored in the dynamic knowledge database step 255 0036 In another embodiment not shown the service technician is regularly provided with or may request the opportunity to manually enter observations and suggestions as the repair is being conducted These may be used for the current session only or saved and applied to the knowledge database 101 Any repair report being submitted may of course be submitted in the multimedia session itself In one embodiment the events of the current repair session are stored and automaticall used to generate a report or inserted into a report form that is then presented to the service technician for review The report as presented may then be amended or supplemented by the technician Apr 3 2003 although in this case it may be preferable to also maintain an un amended version for comparison 0037 Note that the sequence provided above is exem plary and the steps of process 200 can be performed in any logically consistent order For example the multimedia session may begin immediately with a standard introduction which guides the user through filling out an initial defect report and PPC count download process Note also that not all of the steps will need to be performed for each repair for examp
24. t a higher number of defective products may be accept able to the public at large Returned products are not simply scrapped however Some can be repaired and resold pre sumably having been restored to the originally intended level of quality And some returns are not defective at all but simply returned because they did not meet the custom ers needs for other reasons 0005 Returns are not without cost however when a customer brings back a product and claims it is defective An Apr 3 2003 attempt may first be made at a quick repair To do this an accurate description of the defect must be given and an appropriate fix performed Note however that in most if not all cases the consumer will report only symptoms of a defect the unacceptable performance they encountered They have little or no way of actually determining the root cause of this unacceptability that is the actual defect Not being experts consumers may be susceptible to misreport ing symptoms of the defect making diagnosis all that more difficult Moreover customers who wish to return products may intentionally misreport problems out of a fear that their return for other reasons will not otherwise be accepted And of course with most defects in electronics devices the presence or absence of a defect is not normally easy to identify by simple visual inspection 0006 Ultimately this means that dozens even hundreds of technicians are forced to
25. timedia pre sentation for the guidance of the repair technician in starting the repair process step 230 Note that for convenience herein repair will mean diagnosis repair replace and US 2003 0065967 A1 return product to factory and related operations Also while the disclosure is made using the example of a repair tech nician in a service center it applies as well to another in a different location for example a consumer using a wireless connection involving the product itself in order to transmit PPC data and a personal computer connected through the internet to receive multimedia instructions In this sense service technician refers to anyone performing a repair 0034 The assembly of the multimedia process begins of course based on the information originally provided to the troubleshooting engine 301 It will almost always include an interactive portion to elicit responses to specific questions meant to inform the repair process As with the initial report these responses may be in any usable form Once the initial portion of the multimedia presentation is assembled it is transmitted to the service technician step 235 The service technician then begins to act on the information and supply the responses required At the very least the service tech nician will presumably respond that the issue has been resolved The resolution may or may not have been reached with the aid of the troubleshooting engine
26. ting the product repair to provide information for a repair report 12 The system of claim 10 wherein the repair report is used to supplement the historical information stored on the database 13 A method of assisting a service technician in the repair of a defective product using a multimedia guide comprising the steps of collecting data related to reported defects in products that the service technician is expected to repair and storing the data in a database providing a troubleshooting engine for receiving repair related information from the service technician and using it to prepare the multimedia repair guide for transmission to the service technician that is tailored to the received information wherein the repair guide is at least in part based in the data related to reported defects stored in the database 14 The method of claim 13 wherein the repair related information includes at least one PPC count and further comprising the steps of Apr 3 2003 generating a PPC profile using the PPC count and using the PPC profile to prepare the repair guide 15 The method of claim 14 wherein the data stored in the database includes at least one reference PPC profiles corre sponding to known defects in a product and wherein the step of using the PPC profile to prepare a repair guide includes the step of comparing the PPC profile to the at least one reference PPC profile to determine if they are similar 16 The method
27. ts and any other inputs it receives and compares this profile to others represented in the design and collective experience data in dynamic knowledge database 101 Based on this comparison alone it may be possible to determine precisely the cause of the reported problem although more likely a number of possible causes will be identified each consistent with the received PPC data Each possible defect cause may be ranked again with reference to the knowledge accumulated on dynamic knowledge data base 101 to indicate if determinable which cause is most US 2003 0065967 A1 likely to be correct then which is next most likely and so forth In a particularly preferred embodiment this ranking includes a relative certainty value indicating how much more likely the defect is a result of one cause as opposed to another This ranking and when present an associated certainty value may be reported to the service technician to aid in their analysis In this embodiment when a certain cause is associated with a sufficiently high probability any other alternatives may simply go unreported or may be reported only on request The service technician in this way can eliminate from view distracting and probably unneces sary information In another embodiment the ranking and certainty information is used only for the purpose of direct ing repairs through the interactive service guide 0021 Communication network 201 is a network connect ing the PP
28. ty the root cause of a problem Again PPCs cannot detect defects directly but can be used to statistically predict what the defect will be or at least provide a course of action most likely to find the defect and result in an effective repair 0029 Step 205 data accumulation generally occurs in all PPC equipped devices both satisfactory and defective while they are in the user s or in some instances the service technician s possession The PPC counts are stored in memory until it is full then new count data is added to memory by discarding selected portions of the data already stored Step 210 occurs when a product is returned for repair or alternately when initiated by a customer Note that products may be returned to the seller for a number of different reasons One reason of course is a real defect that the user wishes to have remedied At this point it is usually unknown whether the product will be repaired or replaced or how long any potential repairs will take Even if a customer accurately and truthfully reports the problems with operating the product the determination is not easily made Apr 3 2003 It is in the interest of both consumer and service center however that a course of action be promptly decided on and executed 0030 A returned product is first connected with a device that can read the PPC memory and report the various PPC counts stored there step 215 This will frequently be a connection establi
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