Image forming apparatus assessing whether it is necessary to install additional peripheral device and informing an operator to that effect
AssigneeSharp Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorManabu Matsumoto
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An image forming apparatus allowing the optional mounting of an appropriate peripheral device to the size and the quantity of sheets. The necessity of employing a particular peripheral device is assessed on the basis of the past copying data records which are traced back so as to determine the necessity of the peripheral device.
Claims6
An image forming apparatus the apparatus comprising:
- means for mounting peripheral devices to the apparatus;
- a memory for storing copying condition data sets sequentially wherein said copying condition data sets include the size of sheets, or size of original, documents, numbers of copies from an original document and number of original documents;
- means operatively connected to the memory, for determining whether each data set of said sequential data sets in said memory are of successive copying events or not and for counting said successive copying events in a predetermined period of time;
- means operatively connected to said memory, for assessing a necessity of equipping an additional peripheral device based on a criteria involved in said copy condition data set and said successive copying events;
- and
- means operatively connected to said memory for informing an operator whether said additional peripheral device is necessary or not.
An image forming apparatus with a set of peripheral devices, incapable of equipping an additional peripheral device, the apparatus comprising:
- a memory for storing copying condition data sets sequentially,
- wherein said copying data set including size of sheets or size of original document, numbers of copies from an original document, and number of original documents;
- means for determining whether each data set of said sequential data in said memory is of a successive copying event or not, and to count said successive copying events in a predetermined period of time;
- means for assessing the necessity of equipping an additional peripheral device based on the criteria involved in said copying condition data and said successive copying events;
- and
- means for informing an operator whether said peripheral device is necessary or not.
In an image forming apparatus that includes means for allowing mounting of peripheral devices, and a memory for storing copying condition data sets sequentially wherein said copying condition data sets include the size of sheets or size of original documents, number of copies from an original document and number of original documents;
- the method comprising the steps of:
- (a) determining whether each data set of said sequential data sets in said memory is of a successive copying event or not;
- (b) counting said successive copying events occurring in a predetermined time;
- (c) assessing a necessity of equipping an additional peripheral device based on a criteria-involved in said copying condition data set and said successive copying events;
- and
- (d) informing an operator whether said additional peripheral device is necessary or not.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.