JPS6129987A - Maintenance information collection for equipment - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] This bulletin contains application data before electronic filing, so abstract data is not recorded.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION This invention relates to a maintenance information collection method for various A-A devices such as copying machines, facsimile machines, word processors, and other general devices such as manufacturing equipment and measuring instruments.

Service personnel regularly perform maintenance and inspections on various OA equipment such as plate rice copiers and other general equipment.
Many systems provide services, and when an abnormality occurs, they go out to the site and perform maintenance upon a call from a user.

When carrying out maintenance, the service personnel must check the usage status of the equipment at the time, i.e. the number of times it has been used.

Information such as the level of supply depletion, degree of wear of one part, and abnormalities (
In the case of a malfunction (failure), maintenance information such as the location of the abnormality, the nature of the abnormality, and the name of replacement parts was written on the maintenance card each time.

This card was then taken back to the office, filed and used.

This maintenance information is very important; for example, maintenance information in the event of an abnormality is fed back to the development and design department as failure analysis information and becomes reference data for the next design. Furthermore, information on periodic maintenance is also used as data for predicting the lifespan of supply usage and electrical components, and information on replacement parts is important for inventory management of service parts.

However, in the past, to collect such maintenance information, a service person manually filled out a maintenance card after performing maintenance work, took the cart back to the office, and further sorted it manually.

Purpose This invention reduces the work of such service personnel, and
The purpose is to make it possible to easily collect accurate maintenance information, and also to easily organize and analyze it using a computer.

1- Belly Hereinafter, the configuration of the present invention will be explained based on examples.

In the maintenance information collection method according to the present invention, maintenance information such as the usage status of the equipment and the location of the abnormality when an abnormality occurs is displayed on the equipment as a barcode, and the display is read by a barcode reader and stored in a memory. Collect maintenance information by

Therefore, an embodiment in which the present invention is applied to a copying machine will be described.

When you open the front cover of a copying machine, you will normally see a copy counter (displaying the cumulative number of copies), a display that shows the location of the jammed paper in the machine in the event of a paper jam, or a display that shows the location of the jammed paper in the machine if an abnormality occurs. There is a display etc. that shows the location.

This maintenance information is displayed not only in characters and marks that service personnel can understand, but also in barcodes, as in the past.

For example, as shown in FIG. 1, a counter barcode display 3 is provided on the internal panel 1 that is visible when the front cover of the copying machine is opened, in line with the counter 2. An abnormality point display 4 comprising lamps 4a each indicating D and a barcode display section 4b displaying a barcode corresponding to the lamps 4a.
has been established.

Furthermore, a model code label 5 and a machine number code label 6 each displaying the model code and the machine number code as barcodes.
Paste it.

In addition, a part code label indicating the part code in the form of a bar code is attached to each replacement part unit. For example, FIG. 2 shows an example in which a component code label 8 is attached to the charger 7.

In order to collect more detailed maintenance information, a check sheet 9 is prepared as shown in FIG. 3 in which the symptoms and causes of each device are listed together with barcodes.

Before starting maintenance work, the service person opens the front cover of the copying machine and checks the model code label 52 on the internal panel 1. The barcode display on the abnormal location display 4 and the barcode display on the component code label affixed to the component when replacing the component are read by a barcode reader and stored in the built-in memory.

Furthermore, after the maintenance is completed, the barcodes for the corresponding symptoms and causes on the check sheet as shown in Figure 3 will be displayed.
Similarly, it is read with a barcode reader and stored in memory.

In this way, maintenance information can be easily collected. When a service person takes this barcode reader back to the office, all data stored in the barcode reader's built-in memory can be input to a computer via an interface.

This allows the computer to easily organize and analyze a large amount of maintenance information in a short time.

Note that as the barcode display 3 and the abnormal location display 4, for example, one using liquid crystal can be considered.

That is, as shown in FIG. 4, a large number of bar segments made of liquid crystal are arranged in a row, and a pattern is formed by segment a (liquid crystal off) through which reflected light from external light does not pass through and segment b (liquid crystal on) through which light is transmitted. This allows barcode display to be performed.

In the case of counter barcode display B, this pattern (coat) changes every time a copy is made.

In addition, as shown in Figure 5, one barcode display section is formed using, for example, 12 segments of liquid crystal, and a wide pattern in which two segments are continuously opaque (the part where the liquid crystal is off, shown in black in the figure) is formed. 1" and a narrow pattern in which only one segment is opaque is "o", a 5-bit code can be displayed as a bar code.

Note that the white space in the figure is the part that is in a transparent state when the liquid crystal is on.

The display element is not a non-light emitting element such as a liquid crystal, but a light emitting diode (LED) or an electric luminescence (
A self-luminous element such as an EL (EL) element may be used, in which case reading can be performed with the light source on the barcode reader side turned off.

In addition, the maintenance information collection method according to this invention is as follows:
It can be widely used not only in copying machines but also in various office automation equipment such as facsimiles, word processors, and printers, as well as other general equipment.

As explained above, the maintenance information collection method according to the present invention can reduce the work of service personnel, easily and quickly collect accurate maintenance information, and moreover, can immediately transmit the information to a computer in the office. Since the information can be input into the computer, organization and analysis can be easily done by computer processing.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a front view showing an example of the arrangement of displays on the internal panel of a copying machine for implementing the present invention, FIG. 2 is a perspective view showing an example of a replacement parts unit, and FIG. 3 is a check mark. FIG. 4 is a partially enlarged view showing an example of a barcode display using liquid crystal. FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of correspondence between a display pattern on a liquid crystal display and a code. 1. Internal panel of a copying machine 2. Counter 3.
・Counter barcode display 4 ・Abnormal area display 5 ・Model code label

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. Display maintenance information on various devices such as copying machines and facsimiles using barcodes, such as usage conditions and abnormal locations in the event of an abnormality, and read the display with a barcode reader and store it in memory. 1. A method for collecting maintenance information for equipment, the method comprising collecting maintenance information by