1. HoP (Help on the Phone) Project
by Yuval Levental
ESIEE Paris
DME
yuval.levental@edu.esiee.fr
2. 1
Abstract
This project involved creating an online database for automotive breakdowns by
inputting data given by automotive companies. The data was given in the form of
PowerPoint slides and PDFs, and I needed to properly interpret and organize the data.
The data was organized by car type and warning light colors, among other criteria. I
needed to know how to organize information properly and find the relevant information
in the documents given to me. I had to create a data tree online using the HOP
Application, where I would input the information. To download and format the warning
light icons, I sometimes had to digitally reformat them using image editing software. I
worked with my supervisor to help categorize the breakdowns. He would give me the
information and I asked him questions concerning arbitrary categorizations. I met with
him on Skype three to five times a week. As of now, the project is not complete, but
essential steps have been taken to make automotive assistance easier for owners of
various car models.
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Table of Contents
Abstract ...1
Table of Contents ...2
List of Figures ...3
I - Introduction ...4-5
II - Basic Layout ...6-8
III - Cars
SEAT ...9-11
Ford ...11
Jaguar/Land Rover ...12
IV - Common Breakdowns ...13-17
List of Lights …15-17
V - Diagnostic Procedures ...18-20
VI - ARC Europe Network Survey ...21-23
VII - Conclusion ...24-25
Appendix ...26-33
4. 3
List of Figures
ARC Europe Logo ...4
Login screen, Solutions and safe area ...6
Warning lights ...7
Sub-tree ...8
SEAT PowerPoint, GIMP ...9
Question Editor, Snipping Tool, Dashboard ...10
Ford PDF ...11
Jaguar/Land Rover Testing Procedures ...12
Fuse Check, Steering Wheel Lock ...13
Diagnostic Procedures, Flowchart ...18
Makes, New Makes ...19
Sample Error Message ...20
Excel transpose, Excel list …22
Bar graph of cars by model ...23
Appendix ...26-33
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I – INTRODUCTION
This document guides the reader through the layout and most of the details of the HoP
Interface. Before the interface itself, the automotive documents, their interpretation, and
their utilization for the project are discussed. The description then starts at the login
screen and moves the reader forward through the automotive breakdowns, beginning with
the most general categorizations, from the beginning of the tree to the final procedures.
More specifically, the car trees discussed are those of Ford, SEAT, and Jaguar/Land
Rover. The table of Ford warning lights is in the appendix. The warning light colors and
diagnostic procedures are covered, along with how to upload information. A separate
panel for common engine breakdowns is also discussed.
The other aspect discussed is the utilization of the ARC Europe Network Survey. The
survey contained information about the number of service cars owned and contracted by
each country in the ARC Europe network. I was assigned to extract the specific data
from the master table, which contained information about all aspects of the company,
including the number of employees. The results are displayed in the appendix.
For this internship, I worked for the service company ARC Europe SA, based in Evere,
Brussels, Belgium. ARC Europe is an association of European motor clubs, which is
mostly active in the area of roadside assistance. It is involved in the coordination of
various services and businesses amongst the clubs, representing over 35 clubs in Europe,
and is managed by approximately 50 employees at its central headquarters. They offer a
discount program, named "Show your Card!" where members can show their
membership card to various companies and receive discounts.
This internship started in May, 2015 and ended in September, 2015. From the beginning
of May to the end of July, I commuted once a week from Ile-de-France to Evere,
Brussels, Belgium. I did most of my work online and met with my supervisor once a day
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during weekdays. For the month of August 2015, I decided to move to Brussels and
commute to their office daily. In September, I came back to Ile-de-France and finished
the rest of my assignment online.
One of the main services ARC Europe provides is delivering automotive assistance
services. It is the market leader in delivering roadside assistance, and has managed 12
million technical and 120,000 medical cases in 2014. Additionally, it has responded to
18 million service calls. They are available 24/7 and employ 34,000 operators. Overall,
45 million customers in Europe are covered. More information is available on their
website at http://www.arceuropegroup.com/who-we-are.
Currently, assistance services are provided through written documents. The main goal of
my assigned project, the Help on the Phone project, was to create an online database for
automotive breakdowns from data provided by automotive companies that are association
members. This database will be used by call center operators to find solutions for callers
with automotive problems or questions. The data was given in the form of Powerpoints,
PDFs, and website pages, and was needed to be properly interpreted and then organized.
The data was structurally organized by automotive brand, warning light colors, and other
factors in tree diagram form. The project is located on the website
http://hop.arceurope.com.
There are many possible benefits for an initiative like this. Call center operators will
have a far easier time locating solutions to customer problems, as they can point-and-
click to a potential solution. This will also mean that they will be able to solve
automotive problems much faster, and will consequently be able to solve far more
problems. It will also be far easier to detect and correct errors in problem solving.
Overall, I worked on the breakdowns for three car models and automotive diagnostic
procedures. The three car models I worked on were SEAT, Ford, and the Jaguar/Land
Rover series. SEAT was already partially done, and Ford and Jaguar/Land Rover was
done from scratch. The diagnostic procedures involved various components of the car.
The supervisor would check my progress and call for certain modifications. While there
is still a lot of progress needed to get the tool ready, this work has been essential in
moving the project along.
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II – BASIC LAYOUT
On the welcome page for this project, there are two login accounts in this project: the
“admin” account and the “operator” account. The admin account can view the project
from the operator's perspective and edit the tree diagram. The operator account can only
view the tree diagram in interactive selection form, and will be used by the call center
operators.
Under each automobile choice, possible choices include warning lights, warning
messages, and common breakdowns. There are "Questions", which are the prompt texts,
and the "Answers", which are the selection choices. They are created by the new item
prompt. Warning lights are visual icons on the dashboard, warning messages are text
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messages on a dashboard pane, and common breakdowns are typical car problems.
The first question asked is "Are you in a SAFE place, SAFE area?" Selecting "YES"
takes the operator to the problem selection screen, where he/she awaits the caller's
specific complaint. The "NO" can't be selected, as the operator is required to send
assistance to the driver immediately.
The most common options after following the procedures are "Drive to Dealer", "Send
Assistance", and "Continue to Drive", depending on the severity of the situation. The
warning lights are mostly standardized across all models and are in the colors red/amber,
orange/yellow, green, blue, and white. After selecting the color, the operator sees a panel
of the various lights with icons, and when the operator selects the specific light, he/she
sees the specific problems involving the status of that light, and the possible causes
stemming from that.
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For all models, I was able to save a subtree using a special macro, and recall it through
selecting the tree on "Paste Saved Tree" on the selection creation interface. Usually, this
was to repeat a common concluding clause, included at the end of every item in a set.
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III – CARS
SEAT
The first car model that I was assigned to work on was SEAT. SEAT is based in Spain,
and is currently owned by Volkswagen. The SEAT warning light descriptions needed to
be rewritten to fit the tree structure. Many of the SEAT descriptions were already
included in the diagram; however, they needed to be reformatted based on my
supervisor's wishes. In some cases, the wording is arbitrary, and the supervisor needed to
contact SEAT to see which one was the best fit for the diagram. To include the
remaining descriptions, I was given several PowerPoint slides in different languages, but
I only had to create the tree diagrams in English.
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From the PowerPoints, I would download the icons on the desktop, then upload them
through the uploader interface. Sometimes, the colors of the icons would have to be
modified. I did this through an image-editing program called GIMP – the GNU Image
Manipulation Program. The procedure followed involved selecting a colored area using a
tool, and then selecting the paint bucket. Visual icons can only be uploaded on an
"answer" option. I also needed to download and upload support documents through this
interface.
In PDF documents provided with the SEAT PowerPoints, I was given images of the
dashboards for the car models. I needed to crop the images and upload them using the
uploader. It was possible for me to edit the question and answer slot.
To take screenshots of the PDFs, I used Snipping Tool. Snipping Tool is a screenshot
tool in Windows Vista and later versions that can take a picture of a part of the screen,
the entire screen, or a window. It then saves the picture to a designated location. It is
possible to save the picture as a PNG, GIF, or JPEG.
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At the beginning, I was also assigned to create one question slot per operator procedure
step. However, this proved to be too bulky and the program would frequently crash. To
compensate for this issue, I was later directed to put most to all of the procedures in a
question slot. Additionally, I was initially directed to put the final answers in an answer
slot, then put the final solutions in a subsequent question slot. Eventually, it would be
reorganized into a single answer slot.
Ford
For Ford, the documents were taken from http://www.ford.co.uk/OwnerServices/Owners-
Manual. The vehicle year selected was 2014, and I needed to find all the warning lights
for all the models in the website PDFs. The Ford icons were black-and-white, so I would
ask my supervisor about which colors the icons were. To make a comprehensive list of all
the icons that I needed, I created an excel table where I listed the car models by row and
the icons matching the car model rows by column (Appendix, p. 26).
The icons in the Ford PDFs were white, and were surrounded by a black background.
However, the icons that I would upload were the icons that I used for other models with a
transparent background. There were some exceptions, where I needed to color the
interior of the icon with the corresponding color, which I did using an image editing
program.
The common supportive documents I uploaded were the dashboard diagrams for the
Ranger 2011, C-MAX 2010, Ka 2008, Tourneo Connect 2013, and Transit Connect 2013.
There were also additional supportive documents uploaded pertaining to maintenance
checks.
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Jaguar/Land Rover
The Jaguar and Land Rover problem descriptions were taken from webpages provided to
me in folders. Most of these webpages were small, and I simply copied the text from the
descriptions into the option creator. To take screenshots of those webpages, I used the
Snipping Tool that was mentioned before.
Adding "See Support Document" in brackets at the end of a lot of the descriptions is
needed to give the operator additional information. This also applied to other models, but
was most frequent in Jaguar/Land Rover. The support documents are only uploadable in
the "Questions" dialog. These support documents include dashboard images, additional
instructions, and possibly even videos.
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IV – COMMON BREAKDOWNS
For SEAT and Jaguar/Land Rover, I had common breakdowns included in the
documents. They are procedures for various malfunctioning automotive components for
those models. SEAT had three components listed: Fuse Check, Bonnet Opening, and
Steering Wheel Lock. They had support documents for those cases in the sidebar.
Jaguar/Land Rover had Brakes, Clutch/Gearbox, and Electrical, to name a few. They had
support documents and tree procedures for those cases.
Steps for the fuse check:
1. Proceed with the emergency stop procedure and let the engine cool down.
2. The fuse is either located in a dashboard box or in the car’s bonnet.
3. Look for the fuse using a flashlight and the provided diagram and take it out.
4. Replace the fuse and close the box properly.
5. Start up the engine again. If the car works and the malfunction light is off,
continue to drive. Otherwise, assistance is needed.
Steps for the steering wheel lock:
1. This is because the antitheft system is locked.
2. Insert the ignition key into the system.
3. Push the steering wheel left and right until it is unlocked.
4. If the steering is unlocked, continue driving. Otherwise, call for assistance.
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Steps for the bonnet opening procedure:
1. Proceed with the emergency stop procedure and let the engine cool down.
2. There is the unlocking lever of the bonnet on the lower left side of the dashboard.
Pull it and the bonnet will be unlocked.
3. On the lower left of the front of the car, there is a lever. Press it and lift the
bonnet.
4. If bonnet does not lift, then send for assistance.
Steps for the brakes fault:
1. Check the brake pads
2. Check the hardness of the brake
3. Drive to dealer or send assistance if necessary
Steps for the transmission fault:
1. Check to see if the clutch is slipping
2. Check to see if there is a loss of drive
3. Drive to dealer of send assistance
Steps for the electrical fault:
1. Entertainment system fault
2. Fuel gauge fault
3. Headlamps dim briefly when front screen washers are operated
4. Lights inoperative
5. Navigation system fault
6. Parking aid inoperative
7. Speedometer fault
8. Unidentified electrical fault
Steps for the engine fault:
1. Engine has cut out
2. Engine won’t start
Steps for the flat tyre:
1. Check for serviceable spare wheel
2. Check for the locking wheel nut tool
3. Fix tyre if possible
Steps for fluid leak:
1. Check fluid color
2. Check to see if air conditioner has been turned on
3. If it is not turned on, send for assistance.
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Steps for fuel fault:
1. Is there difficulty filling fuel?
2. Make sure to fill with the correct fuel
3. If you have run out of fuel, send for assistance.
Steps for locking / unlocking / security / alarm fault:
1. Alarm sounding
2. Keys locked in vehicle
3. Lost or stolen keys
4. Vehicle won’t lock
5. Vehicle won’t unlock
6. Unidentified security fault
Steps for mirrors:
1. Problem with powerfold door
2. Door warning lamps illuminated
Steps for wipers/washers fault:
1. Front washers inoperative
2. Front wipers inoperative
3. Front wipers higher than normal
4. Headlamp wasters intermittent or inoperative
5. Rear washers inoperative
6. Rear wiper inoperative
List of Lights
Red lights indicate the most severe problems, orange/yellow lights indicate a moderate
problem, and the rest of the colors indicate a mild problem.
Red Lights
● Seatbelt - indicates that either not all passengers have their seatbelt fastened, or
there is a heavy object on one of the seats
● Brake control light - The parking brake is not completely released
● Transmission control lamp - the transmission has problems. The car is either
driven to dealer or assistance is sent.
● Power steering lamp - The power steering has problems. Cannot continue to
drive, must call for assistance.
● Gearshift lock control - The gearshift lamp is locked. If impossible to unlock,
send assistance.
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● Battery control lamp - the battery isn’t working properly, or too much power is
being used.
● Engine temperature control lamp - The engine does not have enough coolant.
Add more coolant or send assistance.
● Engine oil control lamp - There is not enough oil
● AdBlue - There is not enough AdBlue. AdBlue is used to reduce diesel
contamination.
● Door control lamp - The doors are open when driving. Close all doors.
● Start Stop - The engine is not able to automatically stop. This happens for a
variety of reasons.
● Parking brake control lamp - The parking brake is applied anywhere above the
lowest level. Set to lowest level or send assistance.
Orange Lights
● ABS Light - Automatic brake system is malfunctioning. Drive to dealer if
possible or send assistance immediately.
● Start Stop - The start/stop system is working normally.
● AdBlue - More AdBlue is needed to add.
● Ice alert - used to alert the driver of ice. Depending on the temperature, it may or
may not be working properly.
● Glow plugs - Used to indicate that the engine is turning on. They should only be
temporary. If it turns on while driving, drive to dealer or send assistance.
● Passenger airbag control lamp - Indicates whether the airbag has been turned on.
If it is blinking, send assistance.
● Fuel tank cap - The fuel tank cap is not tight enough. If the light is still on, send
assistance.
● Windshield washer fluid control lamp - There is a low quantity of washer fluid.
The fluid needs to be refilled through the bonnet and washer tank.
● Bulb control lamp - A part of the lighting system has broken down. Drive
carefully to dealer or send assistance.
● Airbag system control lamp - The airbag is overheated. Turn off the engine, take
the key out, and start the engine again.
● Power steering control lamp - The power steering control lamp might be
overheated. Try to turn on the engine again, and if it doesn’t work send for
assistance.
● TPMS control lamp - The tire pressure isn’t at the appropriate level. Adjust the
level or send assistance.
● Brake pad control lamp - Turns on when there is some malfunction with the
brakes. Either drive to dealer or send assistance.
● Light assist control lamp - The light assist camera on the windshield is
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malfunctioning. Try to clean it or send assistance.
● Engine oil control lamp - There is not enough oil pressure. Either check the oil
levels or send assistance.
● Lane assist control lamp - Turns on when the car is not on optimal road
conditions.
● Immobiliser control lamp - The lamp needs to be deactivated for the car to start
● DPF control lamp - The diesel particulate filter needs manual regenerating.
● ESC-ASR control lamp - Press the ESC control lamp button for three seconds.
● EPC control lamp - The engine management system is malfunctioning, send
assistance.
● Emission control lamp - There is a malfunction in the exhaust emission lamp,
drive to dealer or send assistance
● Engine speed limiter control lamp - The engine system has detected a malfunction
and now it is running in emergency mode.
● ASR control lamp - If the lamp is on, there is a malfunction of the system.
● Brake assist control lamp - Several options
● Service interval control lamp - Turns on when the car is in need of service
● Fuel reserve control lamp - There is a low quantity of fuel left until refuelling.
● Mobile phone battery control lamp - Indicates low mobile phone battery.
● CNG control lamp - Needs to refuel as soon as possible.
● Rear fog - Bulb is malfunctioning, drive to closest SEAT service.
● LPG control lamp - There is a low quantity of gas until refuelling.
● Bluetooth control lamp - A device is linked to the bluetooth system.
Green Lights
● CNG control lamp
● LPG control lamp
● Lane assist control lamp
● Front fog
● Cruise control lamp
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V – DIAGNOSTIC PROCEDURES
There is a "Diagnostic Procedures" panel which covers various general diagnostic
procedures. They are taken from the book Advanced Automotive Fault Diagnosis by
Tom Denton. They involve specialized equipment and cover the various car parts. The
specific procedures are the battery test, general electrical testing, ignition systems
diagnosis, emissions systems diagnosis, fuel injection system, engine fault test, fuel fault,
and clutch and gearbox faults.
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The book contained flowcharts which I would need to interpret and organize properly for
the HoP tree. In some cases, the flowcharts would loop around at certain points, and as a
result, I would need to duplicate the flowchart to fit the tree diagram format, to take into
account the multiple scenarios. In other cases, the flowchart would end at certain points
that require another test, and the call operator would hit the back button and click to the
other test. There were also tables in the book, which gave the problems and their
procedures.
Every time I needed to add a new car model or the diagnostic procedures, I needed to add
a new “make”. This is done by clicking on the “Configuration” button, and then clicking
on “Makes”.
At the bottom, “Add new make” is clicked. The editor must input the car model name,
and upload the model logo, setting the logo's height and width. The logo was generally
provided to me, but for the Jaguar / Land Rover make, I needed to create a custom logo
using GIMP.
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Oftentimes, when working on my projects, I would get various error messages. These
would usually come after trying to save a tree. They usually pertained to bigger trees that
took up too much memory. As a result, I was instructed to take screenshots of those error
messages and send them to my supervisor’s email. My supervisor would then forward
the screenshots to the IT department. It was also recommended that I use Google
Chrome to add to and edit the trees that I used.
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VI – ARC EUROPE NETWORK SURVEY
The 2014 ARC Network Survey is a database which has the data output for various
functions collected by each ARC Europe network partner. The data focuses on various
areas such as Operations, Network, Business Development, Finance, Telematics, IT, and
phone calls. The initial data figures were collected per European country, and each
country had a separate excel table. (Appendix, p. 29-30)
The database features a table of consolidated figures for the entire ARC Europe network.
These include total assistance calls, breakdown assistance activities, medical + travel
activities, and other activities. Other figures include number of vehicles covered by
roadside assistance, number of members, number of employees, and number of own
patrols. To top it off, the financial information for all the vehicles was given. (Appendix,
p. 28)
In addition to creating the breakdown trees, I needed to perform some calculations using
the survey data. The first task was to create a new table named PatrolSubContractors,
which showcased all of the country statistics for their own patrol forces and sub-
contractors side by side. This was done by first listing the country names at the top side-
by-side. Altogether, there were 37 countries (Appendix, p. 27).
Before that however, I tried creating a table called RDBMergeSheet, where I manually
copied and pasted all the needed data into a multi-cell vertical column. I also
horizontally transposed the data. However, this didn’t seem to be a useful way to collect
data, so I needed to find a more effective way.
To generate the rest of the data in that worksheet, the values were referenced using the
function “=Worksheet!Cell” (without quotation marks). I had to enter in the country
names and company names manually, as they were harder to reference. The blocks of
data referenced were the data blocks “Own Patrol Force”, which was the data for the
patrol force cars owned by the ARC Europe countries, and “Sub-contractors (Roadside
Assistance/Towing)”, which was the data for the sub-contractors used by the countries.
The data cells referenced for each sheet were from B104 to B133. To quickly reference
them, I referenced B104 for Albania using the aforementioned format, then dragged
down the Excel selection tool to reference the entire cell block. I then dragged the cell
block to the right to reference all the car models.
Another sheet that I needed to create involved rearranging the patrol force and sub-
contractor statistics horizontally, then creating a drop-down menu categorizing the
answers by value. To do this, I used the “transpose” function in Excel. I copied all the
data, then clicked on an empty cell and clicked on Edit > Paste Special in the dropdown
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menu. I checked the “Transpose” option and pressed OK. This procedure horizontally
rearranged the statistics. I needed to then delete the old data and drag the new data into
the old data’s location. (Appendix, p. 31)
To create the dropdown menu, I clicked on the respective cells I wanted and went to Data
> Data validation. In the popup menu, I selected List under Allow, and in the Source box
I selected each column for each top data value. The main purpose of this was to make it
easier to categorize repeating values of a single statistic.
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There were two more tables I created. One of them was to classify the countries by
automotive assistance car brand, and the other one was to categorize the number of
automobiles by brand. To classify the countries by brand, I went to the dropdown menu
for the brands and selected each brand. In a new table I manually listed the car brands in
one category and listed the countries corresponding to the brands in another category. I
also listed the number of cars per country in a third category. (Appendix, p. 32)
In the last table, I combined all the brands into general categories by general brand name.
I listed the number of own patrols and sub-contractor patrols by general brand name by
using the sum function, i.e. “=Cell1 + Cell2 + …”. I also summed up the total number of
own patrols for all cars and the total number of sub-contractor patrols for all cars. This
was the last table for this miniproject.
I also needed to create a bar graph for the number of cars by brand name, showing the
relative numerical proportions of car models by type. To do this, I went to Insert >
Columns > 3D columns and selected the data, and labeled the x-axis values. (Appendix,
p.33)
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VII – CONCLUSION
I-1. Technical conclusion
During this project, I worked on the automotive breakdown trees for three car models:
Ford, SEAT, and Jaguar/Land Rover. When I started, the SEAT tree was partially
complete, and I needed to add more warning lights and common breakdowns. I had to
create the Ford and Jaguar/Land Rover trees from scratch using the tree maker.
Additionally, I created a general Diagnostic Procedures tree for general automotive
breakdowns. There were error messages, mostly The trees have to be checked by my
supervisor, and more data will be added in the future.
The other main task I did was to do calculations for the ARC Europe Survey data. This
involved organizing the data by country and categorizing the data on the basis of the
number of cars by country and the car model brand names. This was a one-day project,
and was done in Microsoft Excel.
I-2. Personal conclusion
This internship experience was very fundamental in learning how to work with another
person on an engineering project. The main purpose was to create an online selection
tree for automotive breakdowns for several car models to be used by call center
operators. While the project is not finished yet, my work was essential in helping create
the tree.
For the first three months, I would travel once a week by Thalys train to Evere, Brussels,
Belgium to work in the office all day. The rest of the week (and sometimes weekends), I
managed to do my work online and meet with my supervisor by Skype. I would also
email error reports to my supervisor.
The most important skill for this project was analyzing and interpreting information. I
would need to analyze Powerpoints which explained the breakdowns and write in the
online application describing the breakdowns and the procedures for those breakdowns.
In addition to breakdowns, I also described various regular system functions.
Warning lights were a big aspect of the breakdowns. They were color-coded, mostly
with red, yellow, green, and blue lights. Red lights indicated the most severe degree,
yellow lights were in the middle, and green and blue were the mildest. There were also
common breakdowns which focused on various automotive components and the proper
procedures.
Icon creation was a big aspect of this project. Some icons were not properly formatted,
so I would need to modify them in image editing programs like the GIMP. This involved
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changing the color using the “paint” tool as an example. The icons were uploaded
through an icon uploader interface on the tree website.
When I did the ARC Network survey calculations, I needed to know a lot about
manipulating numerical values in Microsoft Excel. This included knowing how to
extract data using commands, resort data, create dropdown lists, and create graphs. The
dropdown lists and graphs were created using dialog prompts available from the menu.
The data that was used was about the cars owned by ARC Europe countries, namely the
types of cars and their uses.
Overall, I learned several important skills which will be important in all aspects of
engineering. These include verbal analysis, written interpretation, and organizational
structural design. With my supervisor, I practiced communication and collaboration
skills. This project on the whole will make it far easier for auto owners to receive
assistance by phone.
