Fault Notification Targeting in Image Forming Systems
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Solution Overview
Problem
In image forming systems, faults such as motor failures or paper jams often go unnoticed by users who are not directly affected, leading to unnecessary notifications when all connected users are informed, causing inconvenience.
Innovation Solution
An information processing apparatus that includes a sensing unit to detect faults and a notifying unit to identify and notify only pre-registered users likely to be affected by the fault, based on usage history, organizational information, presence, or operational state, thereby minimizing unnecessary notifications.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of information
If all connected users are notified of fault occurrence, then user awareness of system status is improved, but unnecessary notifications increase causing user inconvenience
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by differentiating notification delivery based on user-specific characteristics such as usage history, organizational affiliation, and presence status. Instead of uniform notifications to all users, the system tailors notification delivery to local user contexts, sending faults only to users whose work is likely affected, thereby eliminating unnecessary notifications while maintaining informed user awareness where needed
2Reliability
If fault notifications are sent to all users, then system transparency is improved, but notification noise increases reducing effective communication
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts relevant notification content from the general fault information and selectively delivers only the portions that are meaningful to specific users. By analyzing usage history and organizational data, the system extracts and transmits only fault information relevant to each user's work context, removing unnecessary noise while preserving essential communication for affected users
Data Source
AI summary
An information processing apparatus includes a sensing unit that senses occurrence of a predetermined fault through one of detection of the occurrence of the fault and prediction of the occurrence of the fault, and a notifying unit that, when the fault is sensed to have occurred by the sensing unit, identifies a user to be notified that the fault is sensed to have occurred from among multiple users registered in advance, and notifies an information processing terminal of the identified user that the fault has occurred.