Patent Application Titled “Training And Risk Management System And Method” Published Online (USPTO 20220114529): Patent Application

2022 MAY 04 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- According to news reporting originating from Washington, D.C., by NewsRx journalists, a patent application by the inventors Deller, Mark (Calgary, CA); Gilkes, Bruce (Calgary, CA), filed on December 20, 2021, was made available online on April 14, 2022.

No assignee for this patent application has been made.

Reporters obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “Business risk has been well recognized by stakeholders such as company owners, insurers, self-insurance entities, financial institutions, government, shareholders, etc. Risk costs are increasing significantly with fewer means of managing these costs. Typical risk strategies often utilize self-insurance and/or third party insurance. Third party insurers are seeing increased risk exposure, especially with risks around business interruption and business continuity aspects.

“With respect to business interruption, many factors are currently unknown, such as the effectiveness of the client’s emergency plan, the ability of personnel to understand and mitigate the various risks and the effectiveness of the client’s staff in reducing loss or preventing further losses while being effective at recovery post risk event. As well there are many unknowns around second order effects such as the effect of third party business interruptions on the client’s business.

“Insurance costs are also rising because the loss ratios are becoming worse and insurance companies are starting to add restrictions and/or deny claims because of their increased risk. Disasters and emergencies are becoming more frequent and having greater effect due to urbanization, emerging middle class, and possibly climate change. Meanwhile, businesses are facing higher costs for losses with insurance covering only 50 percent on average. Even a small cyber incident can cost a small business $1.25 million of a $2.5 million claim.

“A blind spot for insurance companies, financial institutions and businesses is the performance of the business during “High Impact, Low Frequency” events, such as disasters. More specifically, these high risk events are managed by people, and the success, failure, and amount of loss can directly be attributable to the personnel involved in the response. Meanwhile, businesses seldom test plans or exercise personnel in preparation for these events, and this leaves a large amount of risk that must be managed. Because the risk is difficult to quantify, both the business and their financial partners have a large amount of risk on their balance sheets, which, in turn, drives up costs.

“Meanwhile, increasing globalization and urbanization is increasing the complexity of the environment in which businesses and government operate. Environmental change is also creating more risk for business and governments in the context of maintaining operations, managing profitability, and reducing potential loss of life.

“For example, U.S. Pat. No. 7,991,729 to Lockheed Martin Corp., filed on Oct. 4, 2007, describes a system and a method for automating performance assessments of an exercise or a training activity. The system provides event assessment information in real-time to one or more evaluators in conjunction with unfolding events. The system includes a scenario workflow that defines events that are expected to occur. The assessment including the evaluator’s remarks, comments and evaluations is recorded and stored. The applicable assessment criteria can be dynamically adjusted by the evaluator based on accomplishment of assessment objectives during the assessment session.

“U.S. Pat. Application. No. 2014/0004487 to Cheben et al., filed on Mar. 12, 2012, describes a real-time immersive training system. The system includes an immersive visualization room that includes a rendering device configured to provide a three dimensional image of a workspace on a display surface. An operations console is configured to provide plant information to the rendering device and obtain operator input from an input device. A communications system is configured to interact with a dynamic process simulator. The dynamic process simulator provides simulated real time data of the workspace to the immersive visualization room and the operator console. It also provides parameter updates and accepts parameter input from the immersive visualization room.

“U.S. Pat. App. No. 2018/0068582 to Lawrence Livermore National Security LLC., filed on Oct. 31, 2017, describes a simulation system useful for the experiences of the individuals participating in the simulated exercise that would be experienced during an actual emergency event. The simulation system comprises a signal generator for generating signals corresponding to the evolving scenario and a controller to cause the generator to generate the signals. The signals are used to simulated the emergency event and are provided to the user for experience.”

In addition to obtaining background information on this patent application, NewsRx editors also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent application: “There is a strong desire to develop systems and methods to better understand the risk as well as to provide training and risk management platform for improving efficiency of responding to high risk and low frequency events and reducing risk for varieties of stakeholders.

“According to one aspect, a training and risk management method is provided, comprising: designing a computer simulation for simulating an exercise based on an exercise plan; building the computer simulation; collecting exercise data of participants of a team conducting the exercise; evaluating team performance of the team by comparing the exercise data with an evaluation plan; providing feedback for changes to one of the exercise plan, the evaluation plan, the team performance and any combinations based on evaluation of team performance; updating one of the exercise plan, the evaluation plan, the team performance and any combinations upon receiving the feedback.

“According to another aspect, a training and risk management system is provided. The system comprises at least one server for storing a computer simulation subsystem, a team performance measurement subsystem (TPMS) and a risk management platform, and at least one electronic device for accessing the computer simulation subsystem, the TPMS and the risk management platform via Internet. The computer simulation subsystem includes a first computer program having instructions to simulate an exercise based on an exercise plan, and to receive exercise data of participants of a team conducting the exercise. The TPMS includes a second computer program having instruction to store evaluation plans, and to evaluate team performance. The risk management platform includes a third computer program having instructions to store source information for the simulation subsystem and source information for the evaluation plans, and to provide an application programming interface (API) that allows users to access the computer simulation subsystem and the TPMS via the local electronic device. The exercise plan, the evaluation plan and the team performance can be updated for changes upon receiving feedback of the evaluation of the team performance.

“According to another aspect, the training and risk management system further comprises a computer vision subsystem for capturing and processing images or videos of activities of participants of the team conducing the exercise. The computer vision subsystem comprises an image/video gathering system for capturing the images or videos and an image processing subsystem for processing the images or videos. The image processing subsystem may process the images or videos for human recognition, human identification, activity recognition, role correlation, time/activity/process correlation and success correlation.

“According to another aspect, a computer program product embodied in a computer readable storage medium that implements a method for training and risk management is provided. The computer readable storage medium may store computer programs of the computer simulation subsystem, the TPMS and the risk management platform for performing the designing of a computer simulation, building the computer simulation, collecting exercise data, evaluating team performance, providing feedback for changes to an exercise plan and an evaluation plan, and updating the exercise plan, the evaluation plan and the team performance based on the feedback.

“This system of the invention measures team performance, and allows for continuous improvement to take place. It also allows decision makers and senior responders to practice their roles in a very realistic manner. Team performance measurement plus realistic practice allows personnel to become well-prepared for rare but impactful incidents and emergencies. Incident and emergency plans for rare events are seldom fully fleshed out and tested. Infrequent events are difficult to practice or because of the equipment involved the training can be unrealistic. This training system allows users to conduct realistic practice, using their actual communication system and following their actual emergency processes and procedures. It provides much more engaging tool to improve the efficiency to respond to emergencies or disasters and to reduce the risk of these events.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A training and risk management method comprising: designing a computer simulation for simulating an exercise based on an exercise plan; building the computer simulation; collecting exercise data of participants of a team conducting the exercise; evaluating team performance of the team by comparing the exercise data with an evaluation plan; providing feedback for changes to one of the exercise plan, the evaluation plan, the team performance and any combinations based on evaluation of team performance; updating one of the exercise plan, the evaluation plan, the team performance and any combinations upon receiving the feedback.

“2. The method of claim 1, wherein the designing step comprises gathering information including geographical information, asset type of entities, scenario inject, event inject and weather related to the geographical information.

“3. The method of claim 2, wherein the designing step further comprises translating the gathered information into simulation entities and storing the simulation entities into different categories of a database.

“4. The method of claim 3, wherein building the computer simulation comprises selecting exercise simulation entities from the database.

“5. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of collecting exercise data comprises capturing images or videos of activities of the participants conducting the exercise.

“6. The method of claim 5, further comprising processing the images or videos for human recognition, human identification, activity recognition, role correlation, time/activity/process correlation and success correlation.

“7. The method of claim 6, comprising processing the images or videos based on artificial intelligent training algorithm with initial human input, and generating processed data.

“8. The method of claim 7, wherein the evaluating step comprises comparing the processed data with the evaluation plan.

“9. The method of claim 8, wherein the evaluating step comprises evaluating performance of each activity of each participant at certain time and certain exercise point during the exercise.

“10. A training and risk management system comprising: at least one server for storing a computer simulation subsystem, a team performance measurement subsystem (TPMS) and a risk management platform; at least one electronic device for accessing the computer simulation subsystem, the TPMS and the risk management platform via Internet; wherein the computer simulation subsystem includes a first computer program having instructions to simulate an exercise based on an exercise plan, and to receive exercise data of participants of a team conducting the exercise; the TPMS includes a second computer program having instruction to store evaluation plans, and to evaluate team performance; and the risk management platform includes a third computer program having instructions to stores source information for the simulation subsystem and source information for the evaluation plans, and to provide an application programming interface (API) that allows users to access the computer simulation subsystem and the TPMS via the local electronic device; the exercise plan, the evaluation plan and the team performance being updated for changes upon receiving feedback of evaluation of the team performance.

“11. The system of claim 10, further comprising an exercise planning module having a web interface available at a local computer for importing source information for building a simulation.

“12. The system of claim 11, wherein a plurality of types of source information from the risk management platform are available for selection via the web interface and are translated into simulation entities.

“13. The system of claim 10, further comprising a computer vision subsystem for capturing and processing images or videos of activities of participants of the team conducing the exercise; the images or videos being sent to the simulation subsystem after processed in the electronic device.

“14. The system of claim 13, wherein the computer vision subsystem comprises an image/video gathering system for capturing the images or videos and an image processing subsystem for processing the images or videos.

“15. The system of claim 14, wherein the image processing subsystem include instructions to process the images or videos for human recognition, human identification, activity recognition, role correlation, time/activity/process correlation and success correlation.

“16. The system of claim 10, wherein the computer simulation subsystem comprises instructions to evaluate a performance of each activity of each participant at certain time and at certain exercise point during the exercise.

“17. The system of claim 10, wherein the TPMS includes instructions to measure the team performance according to a checklist of the evaluation plan on a 5-point Likert scale.

“18. The system of claim 10, wherein the risk management platform includes a main dashboard showing a plurality of choices of exercise plans to be conducted and a plurality of sub-dashboards showing status and progress of the exercise being conducted.

“19. The system of claim 10, wherein the TPMS includes a web application program executable at a mobile device.

“20. A computer program product embodied in a computer readable storage medium that implements a method for training and risk management, the method comprising: designing a computer simulation for simulating an exercise based on an exercise plan; building the computer simulation; collecting exercise data of participants of a team conducting the exercise; evaluating team performance of the team by comparing the exercise data with an evaluation plan; providing feedback for changes to one of the exercise plan, the evaluation plan, the team performance and any combinations based on evaluation of team performance; updating one of the exercise plan, the evaluation plan, the team performance and any combinations upon receiving the feedback.”

For more information, see this patent application: Deller, Mark; Gilkes, Bruce. Training And Risk Management System And Method. Filed December 20, 2021 and posted April 14, 2022. Patent URL: https://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220220114529%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20220114529&RS=DN/20220114529

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