MAINTENANCE MANAGEMENT APPARATUS, MAINTENANCE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM, METHOD OF MANAGING MAINTENANCE, AND RECORDING MEDIUM

• US 20200137241A1
• Filed: 09/26/2019
• Published: 04/30/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 10/30/2018
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ricoh Company Limited
• Original Assignee: Ricoh Company Limited
• Inventors: SHIMMA, Katsumasa, TAKIYA, Yuji
• Granted Patent: US 11,172,079 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/30 Monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1204 resulting in reduced user or operator actions, e.g. presetting, automatic actions, using hardware token storing data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/121 Facilitating exception or error detection and recovery, e.g. fault, media or consumables depleted
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1219 with regard to consumables, e.g. ink, toner, paper
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1229 Printer resources management or printer maintenance, e.g. device status, power levels
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1285 Remote printer device, e.g. being remote from client or server
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/00344 with a management, maintenance, service or repair apparatus monitoring H04N1/00002

Abstract

A maintenance management apparatus for managing maintenance on one or more devices, includes: circuitry to: obtain self-maintenance information indicating time at which self-maintenance has been performed on a device; obtain maintenance information indicating maintenance scheduled to be performed on the device from a memory, the maintenance information including time information indicating scheduled execution time of maintenance; update the time information indicating scheduled execution time of maintenance based on the self-maintenance information; and send a notification for prompting maintenance of the device when the time indicated by the time information having been updated is reached.

Claims

1. A maintenance management apparatus for managing maintenance on one or more devices, comprising:

circuitry configured to;

obtain self-maintenance information indicating time at which self-maintenance has been performed on a device;

obtain maintenance information indicating maintenance scheduled to be performed on the device from a memory, the maintenance information including time information indicating scheduled execution time of maintenance;

update the time information indicating scheduled execution time of maintenance based on the self-maintenance information; and

send a notification for prompting maintenance of the device when the time indicated by the time information having been updated is reached.

2. The maintenance management apparatus according to claim 1,

wherein the circuitry is configured to

update the time information stored in the memory at time determined based on at least one of the time at which the self-maintenance indicated by the self-maintenance information has been performed, an installation date of the device, and a usage amount of the device.

3. The maintenance management apparatus according to claim 1,

the circuitry is configured to:

obtain, from the memory, execution interval information indicating an execution interval of maintenance included in the maintenance information;

update the execution interval information included in the maintenance information stored in the memory based on the self-maintenance information; and

sends a notification for prompting maintenance of the device when the time indicated by the updated execution interval information is reached.

4. The maintenance management apparatus according to claim 1,

wherein the circuitry is configured to further send a notification, when the self-maintenance information indicating that maintenance has been performed on the device is not obtained by the scheduled execution time of maintenance indicated the time information stored in the memory.

5. The maintenance management apparatus according to claim 1,

wherein the circuitry is configured to further send a notification, when the self-maintenance information indicating that maintenance has been performed on the device is not obtained by a time, that is before the scheduled execution time of maintenance indicated by the time information stored in the memory by a predetermined period of time.

6. The maintenance management apparatus according to claim 1,

wherein the memory stores, for each one of the plurality of devices, the maintenance information of the device, and

the circuitry is configured to control a display to display a maintenance execution status of each of the devices based on the maintenance information of each of the devices stored in the memory.

7. A maintenance management system comprising:

the maintenance management apparatus according to claim 1;

a collection device configured to collect the self-maintenance information from the device, and transmit the self-maintenance information to the maintenance management apparatus; and

an information processing apparatus operated by a user who manages the device, the information processing apparatus being configured to input the self-maintenance information indicating the self-maintenance performed on the device, and to receive the notification from the maintenance management apparatus.

8. A method of managing maintenance on one or more devices, the method comprising:

obtaining self-maintenance information indicating time at which self-maintenance has been performed on a device;

obtain maintenance information indicating maintenance scheduled to be performed on the device from a memory, the maintenance information including time information indicating scheduled execution time of maintenance;

update the time information indicating scheduled execution time of maintenance based on the self-maintenance information; and

send a notification for prompting maintenance of the device when the time indicated by the time information having been updated is reached.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein

the updating is performed at time determined based on at least one of the time at which the self-maintenance indicated by the self-maintenance information has been performed, an installation date of the device, and a usage amount of the device.

10. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

obtain, from the memory, execution interval information indicating an execution interval of maintenance included in the maintenance information;

updating the execution interval information included in the maintenance information stored in the memory based on the self-maintenance information; and

sending a notification for prompting maintenance of the device when the time indicated by the updated execution interval information is reached.

11. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

Sending a notification, when the self-maintenance information indicating that maintenance has been performed on the device is not obtained by the scheduled execution time of maintenance indicated by the time information stored in the memory.

12. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

sending a notification, when the self-maintenance information indicating that maintenance has been performed on the device is not obtained by a time, that is before the scheduled execution time of maintenance indicated by the time information stored in the memory by a predetermined period of time.

13. The method of claim 8, wherein the memory stores, for each one of the plurality of devices, the maintenance information of the device, the method further comprising:

displaying, on a display, a maintenance execution status of each of the devices based on the maintenance information of each of the devices stored in the memory.

14. A non-transitory recording medium which, when executed by one or more processors, cause the processors to perform a method of managing maintenance on one or more devices, the method comprising:

obtaining self-maintenance information indicating time at which self-maintenance has been performed on a device;

obtain maintenance information indicating maintenance scheduled to be performed on the device from a memory, the maintenance information including time information indicating scheduled execution time of maintenance;

update the time information indicating scheduled execution time of maintenance based on the self-maintenance information; and

send a notification for prompting maintenance of the device when the time indicated by the time information having been updated is reached.