Centralized Image Data Management Across Multiple Printers
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Solution Overview
Problem
In offices with multiple image forming devices, users face inconvenience in accessing and printing documents as each device manages only its own stored documents, requiring access to individual devices for printing.
Innovation Solution
An image forming device with an image reading unit, storage unit, and printing unit, along with an image information transmission unit that transmits attribute information to an information management device over a network, allowing centralized management of image data across multiple devices.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If each image forming device manages only its own stored documents, then device security and data integrity are maintained, but user convenience and accessibility to documents across multiple devices deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an information management device as an intermediary between multiple image forming devices and users. This mediator collects attribute information from various devices, provides unified document search and selection capabilities, and facilitates printing requests without requiring users to access individual device storage locations directly, thus maintaining security while improving accessibility
2Reliability
If document management is decentralized across multiple image forming devices, then device autonomy and security are preserved, but system complexity for users increases and productivity decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The information management device provides universal document management capabilities that work across multiple image forming devices. It offers unified document search, selection, and printing functions that are accessible from any device in the network, eliminating the need for users to learn different access methods for each device and thereby improving document handling efficiency while preserving device autonomy
3Ease of operation
If users must access each individual image forming device to print documents, then precise control over device-specific functions is maintained, but user workload and time consumption increase
Solution Approach 1:
The information management device performs preliminary actions by pre-collecting and organizing attribute information from all image forming devices, creating a unified document catalog in advance. When users need to print, the document is already located and prepared for selection, eliminating the time-consuming process of manually searching through each device and enabling rapid document retrieval and printing
Data Source
AI summary
An image forming device is disclosed that is able to easily deal with image data stored in plural image forming devices. The image forming device includes an image reading unit that reads image data; a storage unit that stores the image data read by the image reading unit; a printing unit that prints the image data; and an image information transmission unit that transmits at least attribute information of the image data to an information management device through a network, which manages at least the attribute information transmitted from the plural image forming devices.