A managed print service often includes operations that are managed by a second party on behalf of an enterprise. As a form of outsourcing, it allows the enterprise to focus on its core business. Printing, for example, can be viewed as a core infrastructure along with information management and technology.
Meter reads from managed print services are typically used to bill users of those services. For example, customers may be invoiced according to the number of pages they print. If a meter read is exceptional, such as an exceptionally high value or an exceptionally low value, it may be flagged as being suspect. Exceptional meter reads can be an indication of a software error, a customer error and/or the like. Regardless of the cause, however, exceptional meter reads must be reconciled, which often incurs considerable time and cost.
In addition, exceptional meter reads are often flagged based on an average meter rate calculated as the average volume between, for example, the last two invoices. This method for determining exceptional meter reads suffers from several flaws, however. For example, the average meter rate is presumed to be constant between invoice meter reads which does not allow for adaption to legitimately changing behavior. In addition, the average meter rate is typically determined using an unweighted average of activity that occurred in the past. As such, activity that occurred at the beginning of the time period is typically weighted equally with recent activity.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds