Equipment maintenance and monitoring systems and methods for use in shipping terminals

Abstract

Apparatus and methods are disclosed for a shipping yard and/or a container yard that is configured to communicate with at least one status reporting device to create at least one status report for a container handling device and/or the status reporting device. The status report may be processed to create at least one system action request and/or it may be logged to maintain at least one system log for the container handling device and/or the status reporting device. The container handling device may include any of an optical characteristic system and means for sensing the machine state of the handling device and/or any component coupled to it.

1 . An apparatus for a shipping yard, comprising:
 means for communicating with at least one status reporting device to create at least one status report for an instance of at least one of a container handling device and said status reporting device;   means for processing said status report to create at least one system action request; and   means for logging said status report to maintain at least one system log for at least one of said container handling device and said status reporting device.   
   
   
       2 . The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein said means for communicating includes at least one instance of at least one of a wireless transceiver, a removable memory device and a wireline network interface. 
   
   
       3 . The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein said system action request includes at least one instance of at least one member of the list comprising
 a fault condition problem for at least one of said status reporting device and said container handling device, and   maintenance scheduling request for at least one of said status reporting device and said container handling device.