PURPOSE: To releave the load of failure analysis job of maintenance personnel, by performing totally, automatically and quickly the retrieval of failed information.

CONSTITUTION: The maintenance personnel registers a reference step to a reference step storage file 3 to introduce the required information at first. Further, the retrieval step to retrieve this information is registered in a retrieval step storage file 4 with an input/output terminal device 1. Further, a command and an indication key word to indicate the retrieval step are given to a maintenance computer 2 with a terminal device 1. The computer 2 retrieves the required retrieval step from the file 4 according to the program used for the automatic retrieval system with the retrieval indication. Then, the control table designated from the file 3 is taken as the key word and the collecting step is retrieved. The required information is collected from a failure information file 6 with the collective means. The collected information is collated with the retrieval means and the result of retrieval is edited and outputted to the terminal device 1.