Unified Consumable Delivery Timing for Image Forming Apparatuses
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Solution Overview
Problem
The increasing labor shortage, frequent disasters, and rising delivery costs pose challenges in ensuring timely and cost-effective delivery of consumables to image forming apparatuses, leading to potential shortages.
Innovation Solution
A delivery management system that includes a delivery management apparatus and image forming apparatuses, which acquires consumption state information, determines a unified delivery timing, generates adjustment settings for consumable usage, and transmits these settings to the image forming apparatuses to optimize consumable usage and prevent shortages.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If consumables are delivered individually to each user many times, then consumable shortage is prevented, but delivery cost increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines multiple individual consumable deliveries into a single unified delivery event by coordinating delivery timing across multiple image forming apparatuses. The delivery management apparatus determines a common delivery timing that satisfies the consumable needs of multiple users simultaneously, thereby reducing the number of delivery trips and associated costs while maintaining reliable supply to each apparatus.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary action by predicting future consumable states and determining delivery timing in advance. The delivery management apparatus acquires consumption state information, predicts when consumables will be depleted, and schedules unified delivery events before shortages occur, eliminating the need for reactive individual deliveries.
2Reliability
If a large amount of consumables is delivered to each user in advance, then consumable shortage is prevented, but storage burden on user increases
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of delivering excessive amounts of consumables to all users simultaneously, the system delivers partial amounts tailored to each user's specific consumption rate and timing needs. The delivery management apparatus calculates individualized consumption patterns and schedules deliveries to provide just enough consumables to last until the next unified delivery event, avoiding overstocking and storage burden.
3Loss of energy
If consumables are not delivered frequently, then delivery cost is reduced, but consumable shortage occurs
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements feedback by continuously monitoring consumable levels in each image forming apparatus and using this information to dynamically adjust delivery timing. The delivery management apparatus receives consumption state information, compares it against predicted usage patterns, and determines optimal unified delivery timing that prevents shortage while minimizing delivery frequency, creating a closed-loop control system.
Data Source
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AI summary
Provided is a technique that can prevent shortage of consumables while reducing the delivery cost. A delivery management system (20) includes one or more image forming apparatuses (250) and a delivery management apparatus (200). The delivery management apparatus (200) includes an acquirer (202) that acquires information on a consumption state of one or more consumables used in each of the one or more image forming apparatuses (250), a timing determiner (204) that determines a same timing of delivery of the one or more consumables to the one or more image forming apparatuses (250), based on the information on the consumption state of the one or more consumables, an adjuster (206) that generates an adjustment setting for a consumption amount of the one or more consumables, for each of the one or more image forming apparatuses (250), based on the same timing of delivery, and a transmitter (208) that transmits, to each of the one or more image forming apparatuses (250), the adjustment setting for each of the one or more image forming apparatuses (250). Each of the one or more image forming apparatuses (250) includes a communicator (260) that transmits the information on the consumption state of the one or more consumables to the delivery management apparatus (200), and receives the adjustment setting, and a controller (270) that performs the adjustment setting received from the delivery management apparatus (200).