Patent ID: 7385928

Claim:
An image forming device management system comprising a customer system and a center system linked by a network, the customer system having a plurality of image forming devices and at least one management apparatus connected onto a LAN at a customer location, the center system having one or a plurality of computers, the image forming device management system comprising: a monitoring unit, provided in the management apparatus, configured to monitor operating conditions of the image forming devices on the LAN; a storing unit, provided in the management apparatus, configured to store results of the monitoring of the operating conditions by the monitoring unit; a failure detecting unit, provided in the management apparatus, configured to detect a failure in any of the image forming devices on the LAN; a first message unit, provided in the management apparatus, configured to transmit a failure message to the center system via the network when the failure is detected by the failure detecting unit, the failure message including a data provided to identify the failure; a retrieval unit, provided in the center system, configured to receive the failure message transmitted by the first message unit, and for accessing a database of the center system using the data of the received failure message to produce results of the accessing; and a second message unit, provided in the center system, configured to extract a service department ID from the database based on the accessing results produced by the retrieval unit, and for transmitting a service request message to a service department indicated by the service department ID.