System, printing apparatus, and method for managing consumable material without measuring actual remaining amount of consumable material

A printing apparatus comprising:

• a tank configured to store therein a consumable material for printing supplied in units of a predetermined volume from a reservoir, without any detector to detect an actual remaining amount of the consumable material in the tank;
• a print engine configured to perform image formation on a printing medium using the consumable material in the tank;
• and
• a controller configured to:
• obtain a cumulative consumption amount of the consumable material used for the image formation by the print engine;
• obtain the predetermined volume corresponding to a capacity of the reservoir;
• obtain an order count representing how many times an order for the reservoir has been heretofore placed;
• obtain a consumption error correction value for correcting an individual difference in consumption characteristics for the print engine to consume the consumable material;
• and
• determine whether to order a new reservoir, based on the cumulative consumption amount of the consumable material, the predetermined volume, the order count, and the consumption error correction value.

A method implementable on a processor of a system comprising a tank and a print engine, the tank being configured to store therein a consumable material for printing supplied in units of a predetermined volume from a reservoir, without any detector to detect an actual remaining amount of the consumable material in the tank, the method comprising:

• obtaining a cumulative consumption amount of the consumable material used for the image formation by the print engine, the print engine being configured to perform image formation on a printing medium using the consumable material in the tank;
• obtaining the predetermined volume corresponding to a capacity of the reservoir;
• obtaining an order count representing how many times an order for the reservoir has been heretofore placed;
• obtaining a consumption error correction value for correcting an individual difference in consumption characteristics for the print engine to consume the consumable material;
• and
• determining whether to order a new reservoir, based on the cumulative consumption amount of the consumable material, the predetermined volume, the order count, and the consumption error correction value.