Control Device Usage Management via Unused Amount Transfer
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing control devices for electronic apparatuses, such as printing apparatuses, fail to effectively manage and restrict usage based on predetermined permitted amounts, leading to accounting management issues when cumulative usage exceeds permitted limits.
Innovation Solution
A control device with a prohibition unit that prevents excessive usage and a permission unit that allows printing based on unused amounts from previous periods, ensuring that usage is permitted within the allowed limits by utilizing a cumulative and new usage calculation system.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the control device strictly prohibits use when cumulative amount exceeds permitted amount, then accounting management accuracy is improved, but resource utilization efficiency deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The control device performs preliminary actions by storing unused amounts from previous periods before the current period begins. When the cumulative amount in the current period reaches the permitted amount, the system can utilize pre-stored unused amounts from prior periods, allowing continuous operation without strict prohibition and thereby maintaining both accounting accuracy and resource utilization efficiency.
2Productivity
If the control device allows continuous printing, then productivity is improved, but accounting management reliability deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The control device implements a feedback mechanism that continuously monitors the cumulative amount of use and compares it against the permitted amount. When the limit is reached, the system provides feedback by notifying the user and subsequently allowing continued operation based on unused amounts from previous periods, ensuring both productivity maintenance and accounting compliance through dynamic adjustment.
3Ease of operation
If the control device prohibits use at permitted limit, then usage restriction enforcement is improved, but resource waste increases
Solution Approach 1:
The control device applies the discarding and recovering principle by transferring unused amounts from previous periods to the current period when the permitted amount is reached. Instead of discarding unused sheets when the limit is hit, the system recovers and再利用s them by allowing continued operation based on previously accumulated unused amounts, thereby reducing waste while maintaining clear usage restriction enforcement.
Data Source
AI summary
A control device includes a prohibition unit that prohibits use of an electronic apparatus in a case where a sum of a cumulative amount of use of the electronic apparatus for a predetermined period of time and a new amount of use which is newly instructed by an user exceeds a permitted amount in the period of time which is permitted for the user, and a permission unit that permits use of the electronic apparatus by an amount based on an unused amount which is a difference between the permitted amount and the cumulative amount of use in an unreaching period when the unreaching period is present before the period of time in an accounting period including the period of time, in a case where the use of the electronic apparatus is prohibited by the prohibition unit.