JP2021005012A - Consumable item management system and image forming apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

To solve the problem in which: there is a technology to determine the number of days left in which a consumable item can be used to determine the timing to deliver the consumable item; information on a user's history of usage for a predetermined period is required to calculate the number of days left in which the consumable item can be used; if the user's history of usage is cleared in a state where the remaining amount of the consumable item is small, a consumable item for replacement cannot be delivered at a necessary timing; as a result of this, the user's production activity is stopped at a time point when the consumable item being used runs out.SOLUTION: When a user's history of usage is cleared, an image forming apparatus determines if the way of usage of a consumable item is changed before and after the clearing, and when there is no change, determines the number of days left in which the consumable item can be used by additionally using information on the history of usage before the clearing.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 13

Description

The present invention relates to a consumables management system and an image forming apparatus.

In recent years, a maintenance system for managing consumables of an image forming apparatus may be constructed. This maintenance system has a configuration in which an image forming apparatus and a maintenance server are connected by a network such as the Internet. When the image forming apparatus detects that it is almost time to replace the consumables, it notifies the maintenance server of a delivery request signal for the consumables. In response to this, the maintenance server delivers consumables to the workplace or the like where the image forming apparatus is installed. This allows the user to obtain new consumables. At the same time, it is common practice to improve usability by notifying the user that the operation panel of the image forming apparatus is about to be replaced.

Consumables in an image forming apparatus are consumables that are consumed by being used for deliverables such as toner, and consumable parts that operate to generate deliverables such as photoconductors (hereinafter collectively referred to as consumables). Called consumables). In particular, if the toner used for the deliverable is lost while the user is using the image forming apparatus, the deliverable expected by the user cannot be created. Therefore, it is necessary to deliver it before it runs out.

In response to the above request, when the remaining toner amount is predicted from the user's consumables usage history, the remaining number of days that the toner bottle can be used (hereinafter referred to as the remaining number of days) is calculated, and the remaining number of days falls below the predetermined number of days. A technique for notifying a delivery request signal has been proposed (Patent Document 1).

Depending on the remaining days calculation means and the maintenance system, it is possible to deliver the toner at an appropriate time even when the toner consumption rate differs for each user or the toner consumption rate fluctuates.

JP-A-2017-37596

Certainly, it is possible to deliver consumables at an appropriate time by predicting the number of remaining days from the user's usage history. However, problems can occur if the user changes while using the consumables. For example, consider the case where the image forming apparatus is relocated to another department in the company.

After the relocation, the usage of consumables may change significantly due to changes in the users. If the usage changes significantly, it is necessary to switch to the usage that suits the new user. Therefore, the usage history of past users is deleted, and then the usage of consumables by new users is extracted. To extract the usage, the usage history of the user for a predetermined period is required. The shorter the user's usage history for a predetermined period, the less accurate the remaining days of consumables will be, and the more the user will not be notified of the remaining days correctly. In Patent Document 1, the feature amount is extracted from the usage history of one toner bottle. While extracting the usage, the number of remaining days cannot be predicted.

On the other hand, since the relocation of the image forming apparatus is a movement within the company, it is often the case that the consumables are continuously used without being replaced with new ones.

From the above, a use case in which the user's usage history is cleared while the remaining amount of consumables is low can be considered. In this use case, the delivery request signal cannot be notified while the usage is being extracted, which causes a problem that the delivery of consumables is delayed. In particular, when the consumable is a toner bottle, the toner in the toner bottle runs out, so that the user's deliverables cannot be generated, and the user's production activity is stopped.

In order to solve the above problems, the image forming apparatus according to the present invention is
An image forming means in which consumables are replaceably attached and an image is formed using the consumables,
An acquisition means for acquiring the consumption amount of the consumables, and
A storage means for storing the consumable amount acquired by the acquisition means, and
An extraction means for extracting the amount of consumption for a predetermined period from the amount of consumption stored by the storage means, and
Remaining period estimation means for estimating the remaining usable period of consumables based on the consumption amount information extracted by the extraction means, and
A control means for controlling whether or not a delivery signal for instructing the delivery of consumables is transmitted,
A receiving means for receiving a clear signal for re-storing the consumable amount stored in the storage means, and
Have,
After receiving the clear signal by the receiving means, the information in the image forming apparatus before clearing is compared with the information in the image forming apparatus after clearing, and when it is determined that the difference is small, before clearing. It is characterized in that the usable period of the consumable is estimated based on both the information of the consumable amount and the information of the consumable amount after clearing.

According to the image forming apparatus according to the present invention, even if the accumulated usage history of the user is cleared in a state where the remaining amount of consumables is low, the image forming apparatus is consumed without deteriorating the accuracy of the remaining days information notified to the user. Delayed delivery of goods can be eliminated as much as possible.

It is sectional drawing of the image forming apparatus of an intermediate transfer type. It is sectional drawing of the toner supply part. It is a block diagram of the image forming apparatus in Example 1 of this invention. It is a figure which shows the control flow of the CPU in Example 1 of this invention. It is a flowchart which shows the detail of the method of predicting the toner use amount in Example 1 of this invention. It is a figure which shows an example of the usage of the user in Example 1 of this invention. It is a flowchart which shows the detail of the feature amount extraction method in Example 1 of this invention. It is a flowchart which shows the detail of the remaining days calculation method in Example 1 of this invention. It is a figure which shows the simulation result in Example 1 of this invention. It is a figure which shows the operation panel 171 and the consumables management screen in Example 1 of this invention. It is a flowchart which shows the detail when the clear button is pressed in Example 1 of this invention. It is a flowchart which shows the detail of the method of notifying the maintenance server 307 of the delivery request signal in Example 1 of this invention. Judgment flow for obtaining the number of remaining days when using the clear button in Example 1 of the present invention Judgment flow for obtaining the output page in Example 2 of the present invention Judgment flow for obtaining the number of remaining days when using the clear button in Example 2 of the present invention

Hereinafter, embodiments for carrying out the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

First, the operation of the image forming apparatus will be described with reference to FIG.

Examples of the image forming apparatus include a plurality of methods such as an electrophotographic method, an offset printing method, and an inkjet method. The image forming apparatus 101 shown in FIG. 1 is a color image forming apparatus using the electrophotographic method.

The image forming apparatus 101 is a cross-sectional view of a so-called intermediate transfer tandem type image forming apparatus in which image forming portions of four colors are arranged side by side on an intermediate transfer belt 1, and has been mainstream in recent years because of its excellent cardboard handling capability and productivity. It has become. The toner image formed by the image forming unit 110 is transferred to the recording material S which is conveyed by the paper conveying unit 150 via the intermediate transfer belt unit 102, so that an image is formed on the recording material S. The toner bottles 140Y, 140M, 140C, and 140K are configured to be removable from the image forming apparatus 101. Yellow toner is contained in the toner bottle 140Y, magenta toner is contained in the toner bottle 140M, cyan toner is contained in the toner bottle 140C, and black toner is contained in the toner bottle 140K. Then, by attaching to the bottle mount provided in the image forming apparatus, the replenishment port shutter provided in the replenishment port of the toner bottle is released. Hereinafter, image formation on the recording material S will be described.

<Transfer process of recording material>
The recording material S is stored in a form of being loaded on the lift-up device 152 in the recording material storage unit 151, and is fed by the paper feed roller 153 at the image formation timing. Of course, other paper feeding methods may be used. The recording material S sent out by the paper feed roller 153 passes through the paper feed transfer path 154 and is conveyed to the resist roller 155. After performing skew correction and timing correction on the resist roller 155, the recording material S is sent to the secondary transfer unit. The secondary transfer portion is a transfer nip portion formed by a secondary transfer inner drive roller 2 which is a first secondary transfer member and a secondary transfer outer roller 156 which is a second secondary transfer member. Then, the toner image on the intermediate transfer belt 1 is transferred onto the recording material S by applying a predetermined pressing force and an electrostatic load bias.

<Image image formation process>
The image forming process up to the secondary transfer unit, which is executed at the same timing as the transfer process of the recording material S to the secondary transfer unit described above, will be described.

In this embodiment, the image forming portions 110Y and 110M and 110C and 110K are provided, which form an image with toners of yellow (Y), magenta (M), cyan (C), and black (BK). Since the image forming unit 110Y, the image forming unit 110M, the image forming unit 110C, and the image forming unit 110K have the same configuration except that the toner colors are different, the image forming unit 110Y will be described as a representative.

The image forming unit 110Y, which is a toner image forming means, is formed from a photoconductor 111 which is an image carrier, a charger 112 which charges the photoconductor 111, an exposure unit 113, a developing device 114, a primary transfer roller 115, and a photoconductor cleaner 116. It is composed. The surface of the photoconductor 111 that rotates in the direction of the arrow m in the figure is uniformly charged by the charger 112. From the scanner unit 117 including the laser and the polygon mirror correction system lens, laser light modulated according to the image pixel information transmitted from the image processing unit 301 (not shown in FIG. 1) is output. Then, the laser beam is reflected by the folded mirror to expose the photoconductor 111 charged by the exposure unit 113, whereby an electrostatic latent image is formed. The electrostatic latent image formed on the photoconductor 111 is developed by the toner electrostatically charged by the developing device 114, and the toner image is formed on the photoconductor. After that, a predetermined pressing force and an electrostatic load bias are applied by the primary transfer roller 115, so that the yellow toner image is transferred onto the intermediate transfer belt 1 which is a belt member. After that, the transfer residual toner remaining on the photoconductor 111 is recovered by the photoconductor cleaner 116 to prepare for the next image formation again.

In the case of FIG. 1, the image forming unit 110 described above has four sets of yellow (Y), magenta (M), cyan (C), and black (Bk). Therefore, the magenta toner image formed by the image forming unit 110M is transferred to the intermediate transfer belt 1 with respect to the yellow toner image formed on the intermediate transfer belt 1. Further, the cyan toner image formed by the image forming unit 110C is transferred to the intermediate transfer belt 1 with respect to the formed magenta toner image. Further, the black toner image formed by the image forming unit 110K is transferred to the intermediate transfer belt 1 with respect to the cyan toner image. By superimposing and forming toner images of different colors on the intermediate transfer belt 1 in this way, a full-color image is formed on the intermediate transfer belt 1. Further, each time the image forming unit 110 forms an image for each page, the CPU 200 described later counts up the page count P_Cnt and stores it in the RAM 202 described later.

Although the number of colors in this embodiment was four, the number of colors is not limited to four, and the order of the colors is not limited to this.

Next, the intermediate transfer belt unit 102 including the intermediate transfer belt 1 will be described.

The intermediate transfer belt 1 includes a secondary transfer inner drive roller 2 that also serves as a drive member and a secondary transfer inner member, a tension roller 3 that applies a predetermined tension to the intermediate transfer belt 1, and a secondary transfer pre-roller 4 that is a tension member. It is stretched by. The intermediate transfer belt 1 is a belt member that is conveyed and driven in the direction of the arrow V in the drawing. The secondary transfer pre-roller 4 is arranged on the upstream side of the secondary transfer internal drive roller 2 and the tension roller 3 is arranged on the downstream side of the secondary transfer internal drive roller 2 with respect to the transport direction V of the intermediate transfer belt 1. .. A primary transfer roller 115 is arranged between the tension roller 3 and the secondary transfer pre-roller 4. No drive is given to the tension roller 3 and the secondary transfer pre-roller 4, and the tension roller 3 and the secondary transfer pre-roller 4 rotate in accordance with the transfer of the intermediate transfer belt 1.

The tension roller 3 is movably held in the direction of arrow T in the figure (parallel to the plane formed by the intermediate transfer belt 1 stretched between the tension roller 3 and the secondary transfer pre-roller 4). It is urged by the illustrated urging means. As a result, tension is applied to the intermediate transfer belt 1. The outer peripheral portion of the secondary transfer inner drive roller 2 so that the secondary transfer inner drive roller 2 can convey the intermediate transfer belt 1 by frictional force in a state where the intermediate transfer belt 1 is tensioned by the tension roller 3. Is made of conductive EPDM. The initial frictional resistance μ of the outer peripheral surface of the secondary transfer inner drive roller 2 is set to about 1.0 to 1.5. Further, an intermediate transfer cleaner 50 for removing the toner remaining on the intermediate transfer belt 1 is fixedly attached to the tension roller 3 on the opposite side of the tension roller 3 with the intermediate transfer belt 1 interposed therebetween.

The intermediate transfer belt 1 is an endless belt made of polyimide and having a circumference of 792 mm, a width of 346 mm, and a thickness of 60 μm. The material of the intermediate transfer material is not limited to this, but in addition to the above, a material formed of polycarbonate, PVDF, ETFE, PTFE or the like can be preferably used.

The image forming process of each color processed in parallel by the above-mentioned image forming units 110Y, 110M, 110C, 110K is performed at the timing of superimposing on the toner image of the upstream color primary transferred on the intermediate transfer belt 1. As a result, a full-color toner image is finally formed on the intermediate transfer belt 1 and transferred to the secondary transfer portion. The number of rollers on which the intermediate transfer belt 1 is stretched is not limited to the configuration shown in FIG. Further, the material of the secondary transfer inner drive roller 2 and the initial frictional resistance of the outer peripheral surface are not limited to the above configurations.

<Process after secondary transcription>
The full-color toner image formed on the intermediate transfer belt 1 in the secondary transfer unit is secondarily transferred onto the recording material S by the transfer process and the image forming process of the recording material S described above. After that, the recording material S is transported to the fixing device 158 by the pre-fixing transport unit 157. The fixing device 158 has various configurations and methods, but in FIG. 1, a toner image is applied on the recording material S by applying a predetermined pressing force and heat amount in the fixing nip formed by the facing fixing roller 159 and the pressing roller 160. Is melted and fixed. Here, the fixing roller 159 is provided with a heater as a heat source inside, and the pressurizing roller is urged toward the fixing roller 159. The recording material S that has passed through the fixing device 158 and is conveyed to the output reversing roller 161 is discharged as it is on the output tray 162, or if double-sided image formation is required, it is guided by the branching device 163 and is conveyed to the double-sided transfer device. The route is selected to be transported to 164.

When double-sided image formation is required, the recording material S is transferred to the double-sided transfer device 164 by performing a switchback operation with the paper ejection reversing roller 161 to replace the front and rear ends. After that, at the same timing as the recording material of the succeeding job conveyed from the paper feed roller 153, the paper feed path 165 merges with the paper feed transfer path 154 and is similarly sent to the secondary transfer unit. The image forming process on the back surface (second surface) is the same as that on the front surface (first surface) described above, and thus the description thereof will be omitted.

<Toner replenishment from toner bottle>
The toner replenishment operation from the toner bottle as a consumable item will be described with reference to FIG.

In the image image forming process described above, the toner image is formed by consuming the toner contained in the developing apparatus 114. Therefore, the amount of toner in the developing device 114 decreases each time the image forming process is performed. The developing toner amount detection sensor 131 provided in the developing device 114 detects whether or not a certain amount of toner is contained in the developing device, and if the amount of toner in the developing device falls below a certain amount, it is connected to the developing device. The toner contained in the hopper 132 is replenished in the developing device 114. A replenishment screw 133 is provided inside the hopper, and by controlling the amount of rotation of the replenishment screw, it is possible to replenish a constant amount of toner into the developing apparatus 114. Here, if the amount of toner contained in the hopper is less than a predetermined amount, an accurate amount of toner cannot be supplied to the developing device 114 regardless of the rotation amount of the replenishment screw, but the amount of hopper provided in the hopper The detection sensor 134 detects whether or not a certain amount of toner is contained in the hopper, and when the amount of toner in the hopper falls below a certain amount, the toner contained in the toner bottle 140 is replenished in the hopper. As the developed toner amount detection sensor 131 and the hopper amount detection sensor 134, an inductance sensor for measuring magnetic permeability and a powder level sensor using a piezoelectric vibrator are suitable, but are not limited thereto.

A spiral toner transporting portion is formed inside the toner bottle, and when a toner replenishment instruction is given to the hopper, the toner in the toner bottle is transported toward the replenishment port by rotating the toner bottle. Further, the toner bottle is contracted in accordance with the rotation operation of the toner bottle. As a result, the toner in the toner bottle conveyed to the vicinity of the replenishment port is discharged through the replenishment port by pumping accompanying the contraction operation of the toner bottle, and is replenished to the hopper.

As described above, since the toner consumed by the developing device 114 is finally supplied from the toner bottle, the toner in the toner bottle is exhausted by continuing the image forming process. However, since the toner bottle is configured to be removable from the image forming apparatus, it is possible to continue the image forming process by the image forming apparatus by replacing the toner bottle with a new toner bottle containing toner.

<Block diagram>
Next, a block diagram of the image forming apparatus in this embodiment will be described with reference to FIG.

The CPU 200 is connected to a ROM 201, a RAM 202, an image processing unit 301, a toner replenishment processing unit 303, a maintenance server 307, an operation panel 171 and a toner bottle memory 304. When a print job is input via a PC or an operation panel 171 (not shown), the CPU 200 issues an instruction to the image processing unit 301 and the toner replenishment processing unit 303 by a program stored in the ROM 201. The image processing unit acquires image pixel information according to the output image. Then, a laser emission command is generated according to the image pixel information to control the emission timing of the scanner unit 117. Image pixel information is also used to predict toner usage. As described above, the toner replenishment processing unit 303 determines the operation timings of the replenishment screw 133 and the toner bottle 140 based on the detection results of the developed toner amount detection sensor 131 and the hopper amount detection sensor 134, and drives each of them. Rotate the motor.

The toner replenishment processing unit 303 counts the number of times the toner bottle 140 is rotated as the number of times the toner is replenished, and stores it in the RAM 202. The toner bottle 140 is provided with a toner bottle memory 304 as an information storage means, and the CPU 200 is configured to be able to read and rewrite the stored information. The toner bottle memory 304 records information on the remaining amount of toner contained in the toner bottle 140 and information capable of distinguishing whether or not a delivery request signal has been notified to the maintenance server 307. When the toner bottle 140 is not used, the weight information of the toner filled at the time of production is recorded. The CPU 200 calculates a new toner remaining amount by sequentially subtracting the predicted value of the toner usage calculated by the method described later from the toner remaining amount information acquired from the toner bottle memory 304, and the toner remaining amount information of the toner bottle memory 304. To update. The CPU 200 notifies the maintenance server 307 of the delivery request signal at a timing determined by the method described later for the toner bottle.

<Overall flow>
The toner remaining days prediction and the toner delivery request notification in this embodiment will be described.

The overall flow of control of the CPU 200 will be described with reference to FIG. The CPU 200 carries out the flow of FIG. 4 at a fixed cycle of once per second. First, the CPU 200 calculates the toner usage amount from the toner replenishment information and the image pixel information (S100). Details will be described later with reference to FIG. Next, the CPU 200 acquires the date information, and determines whether or not the date has advanced from the date when the toner usage amount per day was acquired last time (S101). When the date is advanced, the average and standard deviation of the user's toner usage in the past predetermined period are obtained, and the feature amount using the user's image forming apparatus is extracted (S102). A detailed description of the feature amount extraction method will be described later with reference to FIG. 7. Next, the number of remaining days is calculated from the feature amount and the remaining amount of toner (S103). A detailed explanation of the calculation of the number of remaining days will be described later with reference to FIG. Next, it is determined whether or not to notify the toner delivery request signal from the relationship between the number of remaining days and the number of days required for delivery of the toner bottle (S104). A detailed description of the notification of the delivery request signal will be described later with reference to FIG. In S101, if the date is not advanced, the feature amount extraction, the calculation of the remaining days, and the delivery determination of the toner bottle are not performed.

<Toner usage prediction method>
Here, FIG. 5 shows a method of predicting the amount of toner used by the CPU 200.

When the calculation for predicting the amount of toner used is executed at time T, the toner remaining amount WT-1 at the time of the previous execution (time T-1) is _first acquired from the toner bottle memory 304 (S200). Next, the image pixel information P and the toner replenishment number N are acquired from the image processing unit 301 and the toner replenishment processing unit 303, respectively (S201). Here, P and N are values that accumulate with the image output. Next, the increments ΔP and ΔN of P and N from the time of the previous calculation execution are calculated (S202). In this embodiment, the representative values of the toner usage amount per pixel of the image and the toner usage amount per toner replenishment frequency are experimentally obtained in advance, and 0.015 [mg] per pixel and replenishment 1 are respectively. 180 [mg] per dose. In this embodiment, the average of the toner usage estimation based on the output image and the toner usage estimation based on the supply amount from the toner bottle is used, and the toner usage amount Q in one calculation step is Q [mg] = ( 0.015 x ΔP + 180 x ΔN) / 2
Is calculated (S203).

Next, the amount of toner used per day is calculated. By adding the Q to the cumulative toner usage C _T-1 on the day determined in the previous calculation, determining cumulative toner usage C _T of day at time T time (S204). Further obtains a remaining amount of toner _{W T} at time T time by subtracting Q from the toner remaining amount _{W T-1} (S205), and updates the toner remaining amount information of the toner bottle memory 304 (S206).

Then acquires date information, as compared with the previous calculation run (S207) to confirm the day if date progresses toner usage C _T as a toner usage per day, day of toner usage C _T Is stored in the past usage list (S208). The past usage list is for storing the history of toner usage per day. After that, C _T is updated to C _T = 0, and the calculation is completed. If it is determined that the date is not progressing at S207 C _T 0 is operation terminates without reset, the day of toner usage C _T at the next and subsequent operations performed are accumulated.

<Feature extraction method>
Here, the feature amount extraction method will be described with reference to FIG.

FIG. 6A shows a change in the daily toner usage of a certain user, and each point is the daily toner usage of each day, and when 70 days have passed from the start of toner use. belongs to. Further, FIG. 6B shows the daily transition of the remaining amount of toner by subtracting the amount of toner used per day from the initial amount of toner (0 days), and shows the remaining amount of toner after 70 days have passed. Is W.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart for extracting the feature amount.

The CPU 200 acquires the past usage list updated in S208 (S301). It is determined whether or not the number of data stored in the past usage list acquired in S301 is for i days (S302). Here, the reason why it is determined whether or not there is data for the past i days is that the amount of toner used for the past i days is required to predict the number of remaining days, which will be described later. If there is data in the toner usage of past predetermined period (Yes in S302), the toner usage per day, to calculate the standard deviation σ of the averaged U _AVE and past predetermined period in the past predetermined period (S303 ). The predetermined time period i date, when the amount of toner used n days and U _n,

When i = 1, σ = 0. If there is no data on the amount of toner used in the past predetermined period (No in S302), the process ends without calculating the _UAVE and the standard deviation σ. In this embodiment, the past predetermined period is set to 30 days. This is because, when the experiment was conducted and examined, it was found that the amount of toner used for 30 days was required to accurately calculate the number of remaining days. However, this can be changed arbitrarily.

<Method of predicting the number of remaining days>
Here, the method of predicting the number of remaining days will be described in detail with reference to FIG.

In order to predict the number of remaining days, data on the amount of toner used in the past predetermined period is required.

The CPU 200 determines whether or not there is data on the amount of toner used in the past predetermined period (S401), and if there is data on the amount of toner used in the past predetermined period (Yes in S401), the toner balance calculated in S205 to get the amount _{W T} (S402). Next, the U _AVE and σ calculated in S303 are acquired (S403). Subsequently, the CPU 200 acquires the remaining amount prediction error σ _L and the delayed delivery probability variable r previously stored in the RAM 202 (S404). The remaining amount prediction error σ _L is a prediction error obtained by an experiment, and the late delivery probability variable r is a variable that can arbitrarily set how much late delivery probability is allowed, and the larger r, the higher the late delivery probability. While it becomes smaller, the probability of early delivery increases.

Then, the CPU 200 uses the remaining amount of toner WT _{, UAVE,} σ, the remaining amount prediction error σ _{L, and the} delayed delivery random variable r to obtain the remaining number of days D until the toner runs out (S405). The calculation method of the number of remaining days D will be described later.

Next, when there is no data on the amount of toner used in the past predetermined period (No in S401), the remaining number of days D is set to 999 days. Here, 999 days is a value determined in advance for displaying on the operation panel 171 described later that the number of remaining days is undecided, and there is no problem with other values.

Next, the remaining number of days D obtained in S405 is displayed on the operation panel 171 shown in FIG. 10 (S406). The display is displayed on the consumables management screen for each type of consumables. Here, it is assumed that the toner Bk has no data on the amount of toner used in the past predetermined period and the remaining number of days D is 999 days. In this case, the number of remaining days is not displayed on the operation panel, but "---" is displayed. In this embodiment, the number of remaining days is displayed as "---", but it is only necessary to distinguish it from the correctly obtained number of remaining days, and there is no problem whether it is "learning" or "999 days".

<Remaining days D calculation>
The details of the calculation of the number of remaining days D will be described. In calculating the number of remaining days D, it is assumed that the characteristics of how to use the past predetermined period i days will continue for the next D days.
Toner usage after D days (center value): U _AVE x D
Standard deviation of toner usage after D days: √ (σ ² × D)
Prediction error of remaining amount after D days: σ _L
Delayed random variable: r
Toner remaining amount: W
Then, from FIG. 6 (b)

And when this is solved for D,

Therefore,

As described above, the number of remaining days D can be obtained.

FIG. 9 shows an example in which the number of remaining days was calculated more specifically using this formula. FIG. 9A is a prediction of the day when the toner runs out 70 days after the start of using the new toner (remaining amount of toner W = 476.3 g). Daily usage of the last 30 days of the 70 day time point average _{U AVE} is 6.7 g, the standard deviation sigma = 4.4 g of daily usage of the last 30 days, the remaining prediction error sigma _L = 5 g, arrears probability When the variable r = 5, the number of remaining days D is

Therefore, it is desired that the toner bottle runs out in the shortest remaining 48 days (118 days from the start of use) and the longest remaining 105 days (175 days after the start of use).

FIG. 9B predicts the day when the toner runs out 80 days after the start of using the new toner (remaining amount of toner W = 378.3 g). Average daily usage of the past 30 days as of 80 days _UAVE is 7.1 g, standard deviation of daily usage of the past 30 days σ = 4.4 g, remaining amount prediction error σ _L = 5 g, late delivery probability When the variable r = 5, the number of remaining days D is

Therefore, it is desired that the toner bottle runs out in the shortest remaining 35 days (115 days from the start of use) and the longest remaining 81 days (161 days after the start of use). Here, for consumables such as toner bottles that stop the image forming device when they disappear, the setting on the side that avoids the risk of stopping as much as possible by adopting the shortest D _min. I have to. In this way, even for users whose usage changes daily, it is possible to accurately predict by calculating and updating the day when the remaining amount of toner becomes zero sequentially based on the characteristics of usage. Further, by adjusting the late delivery probability variable r, it is possible to arbitrarily set the probability of preventing late delivery.

<Clear button>
The clear button 172 displayed in the consumables management of the operation panel of FIG. 10 will be described with reference to the flow of FIG.

The CPU 200 carries out the flow of FIG. 11 at a fixed cycle of once per second. When the user presses the clear button 172 (Yes in S501), the CPU 200 compares the feature amount of the newly extracted user with the feature amount of the past user, and when the difference is small, the toner usage amount is also taken into consideration. The past usage list is updated so that the remaining toner days can be calculated (S502). A detailed description of the feature quantity comparison method and the remaining days calculation method will be described later with reference to FIG. Based on the past usage list updated here, the feature amount is calculated in S102 and the number of remaining days is calculated in S103. If the user does not press the clear button 172 (No in S501), nothing is done.

By using this clear button 172, for example, if the image forming apparatus moves to another department in the company and the user who uses it changes, but there is no significant change in the feature amount, the past usage history is used. Therefore, it is possible to calculate the number of remaining days in a shorter period. In this way, it is assumed that there will be no significant change in the features when moving within an office where similar work is performed. On the other hand, when there is a change in the feature amount, by not using the feature amount of the past user, it is possible to recalculate the remaining days of the toner without being affected by the past history. In this embodiment, the clear button 172 is provided in the consumables management screen, but the initialization is executed by the means for initializing various data owned by the image forming apparatus, and the clearing process of this embodiment is performed. It is also possible to link them.

<Delivery request signal>
Delivery of the replacement toner bottle will be described with reference to FIG.

It is determined whether the remaining number of days D obtained in FIG. 8 is equal to or less than the predetermined delivery threshold value (S601), and if it is equal to or less than the delivery threshold value, it is determined that the toner bottle as a consumable item will be used up soon. When the delivery request signal notification flag is not set (S602), the delivery request signal of the replacement toner bottle is transmitted to the operation panel 171 and the delivery request signal is also notified to the maintenance server 307 via the network (S603). .. Then, the delivery request signal notification flag is set and stored in the toner bottle memory 304 (S604). This is to prevent duplicate delivery request signals from being sent. Further, in this embodiment, the threshold value of the number of remaining days is set to 10 days. When the operation panel 171 receives the delivery request signal, as shown in FIG. 10, the operation panel 171 generates a display instruction so as to display the delivery request on the operation panel 171 as an input / output interface between the user and the image forming apparatus.

<How to find the number of remaining days after clearing>
As mentioned above, since the number of remaining days is calculated using the average usage amount and the standard deviation of the usage amount calculated from the toner usage amount in the past i days, when the user presses the clear button, all the past usage history is cleared. If this happens, it will not be possible to display the number of remaining days and notify the delivery request signal accordingly for i days. Therefore, if the user presses the clear button while the amount of toner remaining in the toner bottle is particularly low, there is a high possibility that the toner bottle delivery delay will occur due to the inability to notify the toner bottle delivery request signal. .. In order to avoid this, FIG. 13 shows a method of calculating the number of remaining days by using the newly acquired toner usage amount when the user presses the clear button and the user usage history before the clear button is pressed. It will be described using.

First, when the user presses the clear button, the variable j indicating the number of days elapsed after clearing is initialized to 0 (S700). Next, it is determined whether there is data on the amount of toner used in the past i days (S701). If there is no data for i days, the data in the past usage list before clearing stored in S208 is deleted (S710), and the process ends. If it is determined in S701 that there is data on the amount of toner used in the past i days, it is confirmed that the date advances (S702), and after the date advances, the variable j indicating the number of days since the clear button is pressed is set. Increment (S703). Then, the average toner usage amount U _{AVE_NEW} and the standard deviation σ _NEW are obtained from the toner usage amount in j days after the clear button is pressed (S704).

Next, the average usage amount _UAVE calculated from the total i-j days of toner usage for i-j days before the clear button was pressed and the j-day for which the clear button was pressed, and the feature amount of the standard deviation σ. Is calculated (S705). Then, it is determined by the variable j whether or not the number of days elapsed since the clear button is pressed in S706 is one day. If it is determined that the number of days elapsed after clearing is one day (Yes in S706), the standard deviation σ _NEW obtained in S704 is 0, so comparison is performed only with U _{AVE_NEW} and U _AVE (S708). _If, | _{U AVE_NEW} -U AVE | For _{<U TH} (Yes in S708), it is determined that there is no big difference in the characteristic amount of users using before and after the clear button depressed. If it is determined that the difference between the feature amounts is large (No in S708), the data in the past usage amount list before clearing stored in S208 is deleted (S710).

Further, when it is determined in S706 that the number of days elapsed after clearing is 2 days or more, both the average toner usage amount and the standard deviation are used for comparison. If | U _{AVE_NEW-} U _AVE | <U _TH and | σ _NEW- σ | <σ _TH , it is judged that there is no significant difference in the feature amount of the user used before and after pressing the clear button. (Yes in S707). If it is determined that the difference is large (No in S707), the data in the past usage list before clearing stored in S208 is deleted (S710). In the case of Yes in S707 or S708, by not erasing the data before clearing, the feature amount in i days including the data before clearing is extracted in S102 described above. Here, in this embodiment, in order to allow up to ± 10% of the feature amount of the user's usage before clearing as the maximum difference, U _TH and σ _TH are U _AVE / 10 and σ / 10, respectively. To do. Next, in S709, it is determined whether i days have passed (j = i) after clearing, and if so, the process ends. If it is determined in S709 that i days have not passed since the clearing, the process returns to S702 and waits for the date to be updated again.

The above-mentioned S102, S103, and S104 are processed in parallel based on the toner usage amount of the past toner usage amount list updated by pressing the clear button, and the number of remaining days on the operation panel according to the calculated remaining days. Request display and delivery request signals. Here, U _TH and σ _TH are threshold values for determining the difference in the feature amount of the user's usage before and after the clear button, and how much the user's usage is allowed to change depending on the value. It is decided. For example, when the value is reduced, it is possible to eliminate the usage history of the user before pressing the clear button even if the usage changes even a little.

In the second embodiment, in order to more strictly judge the difference in the feature amount of the user's usage before and after clearing, the toner usage amount per sheet is also added to the judgment condition. A method of calculating the number of prints processed every day will be described with reference to FIG.

Similar to the overall flow described above, the CPU 200 executes the flow of FIG. 14 at a fixed cycle of once per second. First, it is determined whether the job is started in S800, that is, whether the image process processing by the image forming unit described above is started. When it is determined that the job has started (Yes in S800), P_Cnt, which is counted up for each image process process, is acquired as the page count at the start of the job and assigned to the P_CNT _start (S801). If it is not determined in S800 that the job has started, the job start is continuously monitored.

Next, when the end of the job is monitored in S802 and it is determined that the job has ended (Yes in S802), P_Cnt is acquired as the page count at the end of the job and assigned to P_CNT _end (S803). Then, the page count per job is calculated from the difference between the P_CNT _end and the P_CNT _start , and the page count is incremented to P_CNT as the cumulative page count. Next, if the date is advanced in S805, the number of output sheets per day is determined, the cumulative page P_CNT is stored in the past output page list (S806), and the cumulative page P_CNT is initialized (S807). If the date has not progressed (No in S805), the calculation ends without doing anything.

Then, from the number of prints per day stored in the past output page list in S806 of FIG. 14, assuming that the number of prints n days ago is P_CNT _n , the cumulative number of pages in i days is

Will be. Therefore, the amount of toner used for i days

The amount of toner used per sheet is

And this is called _TAVE . In addition, the amount of toner used per sheet in j days when j days have passed after pressing the clear button is

And this is T _{AVE_NEW} . These toner usage amounts T _AVE and T _{AVE_NEW} per sheet are used to determine the difference in how the user is used.

Details will be described with reference to FIG.

First, when the user presses the clear button, the variable j indicating the number of days elapsed after clearing is initialized to 0 (S900). Next, it is determined whether there is data on the amount of toner used in the past i days (S901). If there is no data for i days, the data of the past usage list before clearing stored in S208 and the past output page list before clearing stored in S806 are deleted (S910) and processed. To finish. If it is determined in S901 that there is data on the amount of toner used in the past i days, it is confirmed that the date advances (S902), and after the date advances, the variable j indicating the number of days since the clear button is pressed is set. Increment (S903). Then, the average toner usage amount U _{AVE_NEW} , the standard deviation σ _NEW , and the toner usage amount T _{AVE_NEW} per page are obtained from the toner usage amount in j days after the clear button is pressed (S904).

Next, the average usage amount _UAVE , standard deviation σ, and page 1 calculated from the total i-j days of toner usage for i-j days before the clear button was pressed and j days when the clear button was pressed. The amount of toner used per _TAVE is calculated (S905). Then, the variable j determines whether or not the number of days elapsed since the clear button was pressed in S906 is one day. If it is determined that the number of days elapsed after clearing is one day (Yes in S906), the standard deviation σ _NEW obtained in S904 is 0, so U _{AVE_NEW} and U _AVE , and T _{AVE_NEW} and T _AVE are compared. (S908). If | U _{AVE_NEW-} U _AVE | <U _TH and | T _{AVE_NEW-} T _AVE | <T _TH (Yes in S908), the characteristics of how the user is using before and after pressing the clear button. Judge that there is no big difference in the amount. If it is determined that the difference is large (No in S908), the data in the past usage list before clearing stored in S208 and the past output page list before clearing stored in S806 are deleted. (S910).

If it is determined in S906 that the number of days elapsed after clearing is 2 days or more, the average toner usage amount, standard deviation, and toner usage amount per page are used for comparison. If | U _{AVE_NEW-} U _AVE | <U _TH , and | σ _NEW- σ | <σ _TH , and | T _{AVE_NEW-} T _AVE | <T _TH , the user using before and after pressing the clear button. It is judged that there is no big difference in the feature amount of how to use (Yes in S907). If it is determined that the difference is large (No in S907), the data of the past usage list before clearing stored in S208 and the past output page list before clearing stored in S806 are deleted. (S910). In the case of Yes in S907 or S908, by not erasing the data before clearing, the feature amount in i days including the data before clearing is extracted in S102 described above. Here, in this embodiment, in order to allow up to ± 10% of the feature amount of the user's usage before clearing as the maximum difference, U _TH , σ _TH , T _TH , U _AVE / 10, σ /, respectively. 10. T _AVE / 10. Next, in S909, it is determined whether i days have passed (j = i) after clearing, and if so, the process ends. If it is determined in S909 that i days have not passed since the clearing, the process returns to S902 and waits for the date to be updated again.

The above-mentioned S102, S103, and S104 are processed in parallel based on the toner usage amount of the past toner usage amount list updated by pressing the clear button, and the number of remaining days on the operation panel according to the calculated remaining days. Request display and delivery request signals.

As described above, when judging the feature amount of how the user is used, by adding the judgment condition to the amount of toner used per sheet, how similar the image density is in the office before and after moving the image forming device. It is also possible to consider whether the document is output. Then, it is possible to exclude users who use the same amount of toner per day, but the number of prints differs greatly, which is actually different in usage, and more strictly identify whether the usage is the same. Will be able to do.

In this embodiment, a prediction example of toner is used, but the present invention is not limited to this, and is applicable to all consumables.

In addition, although the standard deviation is used as the feature quantity in this proposal for explanation, the variance obtained by squared the standard deviation may be used in the calculation (the square root can be avoided by using the variance).

101 Image forming apparatus, 140Y, M, C, K toner bottle,
171 operation panel, 301 image processing unit, 303 toner replenishment processing unit,
304 Toner Bottle Memory, 307 Maintenance Server

Claims (3)

An image forming means in which consumables are replaceably attached and an image is formed using the consumables,
An acquisition means for acquiring the consumption amount of the consumables, and
A storage means for storing the consumable amount acquired by the acquisition means, and
An extraction means for extracting the amount of consumption for a predetermined period from the amount of consumption stored by the storage means, and
Remaining period estimation means for estimating the remaining usable period of consumables based on the consumption amount information extracted by the extraction means, and
A control means for controlling whether or not a delivery signal for instructing the delivery of consumables is transmitted,
A receiving means for receiving a clear signal for re-storing the consumable amount stored in the storage means, and
Have,
After receiving the clear signal by the receiving means, the information in the image forming apparatus before clearing is compared with the information in the image forming apparatus after clearing, and when it is determined that the difference is small, before clearing. An image forming apparatus, characterized in that the usable period of a consumable item is estimated based on both the information on the amount of consumption and the information on the amount of consumption after clearing. When making the comparison, the claim is characterized in that the information on the consumption amount before clearing and the consumption amount information newly extracted in a predetermined period after clearing are used as the information in the image forming apparatus. Item 1. The image forming apparatus according to item 1. When making the comparison, as the information in the image forming apparatus, in addition to the information on the consumption amount, the information on the toner consumption amount per sheet before clearing and the toner per sheet in a predetermined period after clearing are performed. The image forming apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the information on the amount of consumption is used.