Importance

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Abstract

In a maintenance management system in which communications control devices of electronic photocopiers are connected through public telephone lines or the like with a host computer of a maintenance company that manages the photocopiers, preventive-maintenance-oriented, omission-free instructions for maintenance work are obtained by determining items of work to be performed based on how many times maintenance has been performed or based on a count of copies produced. For example, in the case where maintenance work to be performed on a first occasion includes items of work belonging to a work item setting area of a second order of precedence within a maintenance table, if items of work that need to be performed do not agree with those specified in the table, items of work of a first order of precedence are added. To achieve this, based on a count at a moment, a work item setting area in the maintenance table is judged to determine its array number, a maintenance state flag is judged, and the array number is incremented by one, so that instructions of the second order of precedence are indicated. Then, the array number of the area is decremented by one, and the flag is judged to be OFF, so that items of work of first order are added to those of the second order. Next, duplicated items within the same area are deleted, whether replacement is necessary or not is judged, and then it is determined that maintenance on the next occasion includes items of work of the first and second orders of precedence.

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First Claim