An image forming apparatus includes an acquiring unit that acquires a plurality of types of operation control information of the image forming apparatus; an index value calculating unit that calculates an index value indicating a state of the image forming apparatus based on the acquired operation control information; an abnormality judging unit that judges whether the image forming apparatus abnormality has occurred and predicts an occurrence of a failure based on the index value; and a detection pattern position detecting unit that detects a position of a detection pattern on an image carrier carrying a toner image. The detection pattern is formed on the image carrier carrying the toner image. The detection pattern position detecting unit detects the position of the detection pattern formed on the image carrier. The index value calculating unit uses information based on position detection data as the operation control information of the image forming apparatus.