Patent ID: 8514425

Claim:
An image-forming system comprising: a first determining section that, for each type of malfunction in a group of image-forming apparatuses, determines a reference number of occurrences of the type of malfunction based on at least one of (1) a distribution of the number of image-forming apparatuses in which the type of malfunction has occurred against the number of occurrences of the type of malfunction and (2) a distribution of the number of image-forming apparatuses on which maintenance has been carried out after the occurrence of the type of malfunction against the number of occurrences of the type of malfunction; an extracting section that, for the type of malfunction for which the reference number of occurrences has been determined by the first determining section, identifies and extracts from the group of image-forming apparatuses a subgroup of image-forming apparatuses in which the malfunction has occurred a number of times larger than or equal to the reference number of occurrences; a setting section that generates a time series tendency of occurrence of the malfunction in an image-forming apparatus on which maintenance has been carried out in the subgroup extracted by the extracting section and that sets the tendency of occurrence of the malfunction as a criterion for maintenance for the type of malfunction if the tendency of occurrence of the malfunction satisfies a predetermined setting condition; and a second determining section that, for the type of malfunction for which the tendency of occurrence has been set by the setting section, compares a recent time series tendency of occurrence of the malfunction in a target image-forming apparatus with the tendency of occurrence of the malfunction set by the setting section to determine need for maintenance of the target image-forming apparatus on the basis of a degree of correlation between the tendencies of occurrence.