Patent ID: 11930138
Assignee: KONICA MINOLTA, INC.
Field: Audio-visual technology (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC H | IPC H

Claim 14:
15. A method for managing a plurality of image forming apparatuses, the method comprising:
detecting a user operation on each of the plurality of image forming apparatuses by an operation detector of the image forming apparatus for each of the image forming apparatuses for a plurality of users;
storing histories of the detected user operations for each of the image forming apparatuses for the plurality of users, the history of each of the image forming apparatuses including a latest operation time that is a latest time among times when the user operations on the image forming apparatus have been detected;
determining an image forming apparatus recommended to be operated from among the plurality of image forming apparatuses based on a length of an elapsed time from the latest operation time of each of the image forming apparatuses using the histories of the user operations of each of the image forming apparatuses for all of the plurality of users;
outputting a notification indicating the determined recommended image forming apparatus; and
managing the latest operation time that is a latest time among times when operations of the user on a part have been detected for each of a plurality of the parts of the image forming apparatus for each of the image forming apparatuses, wherein the image forming apparatus includes the plurality of parts that are operable by the user, the image forming apparatus includes a job executor that executes a job accompanied by the user operation on one or more of the parts, and the recommended image forming apparatus among the plurality of image forming apparatuses is determined based on a length of an elapsed time from the latest operation time of each of the parts of each of the image forming apparatuses.