Management apparatus, image forming apparatus maintenance system including the same, and management method

An image forming apparatus maintenance system comprising:

• multiple image forming apparatuses each including
• a rotary latent image carrier,
• a charging device configured to uniformly charge a surface of the latent image carrier to a predetermined charge potential,
• an electrostatic latent image forming device configured to form an electrostatic latent image on the charged surface of the latent image carrier,
• a development device configured to develop the electrostatic latent image and form a visible image to be transferred onto a recording medium,
• a prediction-use information acquisition and transmission device configured to acquire, at predetermined intervals, prediction-use information useful for predicting a latent image carrier surface contamination level due to discharge products generated during the charging, and externally transmit the prediction-use information, and
• a contamination reduction device configured to receive an externally transmitted execution instruction to execute a contamination reduction operation, and execute, in accordance with the execution instruction, the contamination reduction operation of reducing the contamination of the surface of the latent image carrier due to the discharge products;
• and
• a management apparatus configured to communicate with the multiple image forming apparatuses via a communication network, the management apparatus including
• a prediction-use information reception device configured to receive the prediction-use information transmitted from each of the multiple image forming apparatuses via the communication network,
• a latent image carrier surface contamination level prediction device configured to execute, on the basis of the received prediction-use information, a prediction process of predicting the latent image carrier surface contamination level of the image forming apparatus corresponding to the prediction-use information and generating a predicted latent image carrier surface contamination level, and
• an execution instruction transmission device configured to, if the predicted latent image carrier surface contamination level exceeds a predetermined allowable range, transmit the execution instruction to execute the contamination reduction operation to the image forming apparatus corresponding to the latent image carrier surface contamination level via the communication network,
• wherein, if the predicted latent image carrier surface contamination level exceeds the predetermined allowable range, the execution instruction transmission device calculates a length of operation of the contamination reduction operation on the basis of the latent image carrier surface contamination level, and transmits the execution instruction to execute the contamination reduction operation for the calculated length of operation to the image forming apparatus corresponding to the latent image carrier surface contamination level.

A management method that manages, via a communication network, multiple image forming apparatuses each uniformly charging a surface of a latent image carrier to a predetermined charge potential, forming an electrostatic latent image on the charged surface of the latent image carrier, and developing the electrostatic latent image and forming a visible image to be transferred onto a recording medium, the management method comprising:

• receiving, from each of the multiple image forming apparatuses via the communication network, prediction-use information for predicting a latent image carrier surface contamination level due to discharge products generated during the charging;
• executing, on the basis of the received prediction-use information, a prediction process of predicting the latent image carrier surface contamination level of the image forming apparatus corresponding to the prediction-use information and generating a predicted latent image carrier surface contamination level;
• calculating, if the predicted latent image carrier surface contamination level exceeds a predetermined allowable range, a length of operation of a contamination reduction operation which reduces the contamination of the surface of the latent image carrier due to the discharge products, on the basis of the latent image carrier surface contamination level;
• and
• transmitting an execution instruction to execute the contamination reduction operation for the calculated length of operation to the image forming apparatus corresponding to the latent image carrier surface contamination level via the communication network,
• wherein, if the predicted latent image carrier surface contamination level exceeds the predetermined allowable range, the transmitting calculates a length of operation of the contamination reduction operation on the basis of the latent image carrier surface contamination level, and transmits the execution instruction to execute the contamination reduction operation for the calculated length of operation to the image forming apparatus corresponding to the latent image carrier surface contamination level.