SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR MULTI-SITE CELLULAR MANUFACTURING WITH TRANSPORTATION DELAYS

• US 20120314248A1
• Filed: 06/09/2011
• Published: 12/13/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 06/09/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Xerox Corporation (Xerox Holdings Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Palo Alto Research Center, Inc. (Xerox Holdings Corp.), Xerox Corporation (Xerox Holdings Corp.)
• Inventors: Zhou, Rong, Rai, Sudhendu, Do, Minh Binh, Lambrecht, Craig
• Granted Patent: US 10,732,913 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 358/1.15
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1212 achieving reduced delay between job submission and print start
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1238 Secure printing, e.g. user identification, user rights for device usage, unallowed content, blanking portions or fields of a page, releasing held jobs
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/126 Job scheduling, e.g. queuing, determine appropriate device
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1282 High volume printer device
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0631 Resource planning, allocation, distributing or scheduling for enterprises or organisations
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/32545 Distributing a job or task among a plurality of input devices or a plurality of output devices

Abstract

A system and method is used to manage scheduling of a plurality of print jobs in a multi-site print shop environment. The multi-site environment includes a plurality of print shops each having resources and equipment to complete at least one type of print job. Also included is a multi-site scheduler configuration arranged to assign and schedule print jobs to one of a home shop and a non-home shop. The assigning and scheduling is based on a fastest completion time, wherein a completion time of a print job in a home shop is defined as the actual time taken to complete the print job and a completion time of a print job in a non-home shop is defined as the actual time taken to complete the print job and a transportation delay.

Claims

1. A system for managing scheduling of a plurality of jobs in a multi-site shop environment comprising:

a plurality of shops having resources and equipment to complete at least one type of job; and

a multi-site scheduler configured to assign and schedule jobs to one of a home shop or a non-home shop, based on a fastest completion time, wherein a completion time of a job in a home shop is defined as an actual time taken to complete the job and a completion time of a job in a non-home shop is defined as the actual time taken to complete the job and a transportation delay.

2. The system according to claim 1 wherein the transportation delay is defined as a time taken to transport a completed job from the non-home shop to the home shop.

3. The system according to claim 1 wherein the transportation delay is a static delay.

4. The system according to claim 1 wherein the transportation delay is a dynamically changing delay.

5. The system according to claim 1 wherein a single job has a single home shop.

6. The system according to claim 1 wherein a single job has multiple home shops.

7. The system according to claim 2 wherein the transportation delay further includes transportation cost.

8. The system according to claim 2 wherein the transportation delay further includes production cost.

9. The system according to claim 1 wherein the multi-site scheduler is configured to assign and schedule print jobs in loosely coupled single-site shops by explicit modeling of inter-cell delays.

10. The system according to claim 1 wherein the multi-site scheduler is configured to operate with a multi-site earliest-completion-time scheduling policy.

11. The system according to claim 1, wherein the multi-site scheduler is comprised of a plurality of parallel implementations of the multi-site scheduler.

12. A method for managing a scheduling of a plurality of print jobs in a multi-site print shop environment comprising:

defining a plurality of print shops having resources and equipment to complete at least one type of print job as part of a multi-site printing environment; and

configuring a multi-site scheduler to assign and schedule print jobs to one of a home shop and a non-home shop, based on a fastest completion time, wherein a completion time of a print job in a home shop is defined as an actual time taken to complete the print job and a completion time of a print job in a non-home shop is defined as the actual time taken to complete the print job and a transportation delay.

13. The method according to claim 12 wherein the transportation delay is defined as a time taken to transport a completed job from the non-home shop to the home shop.

14. The method according to claim 12 wherein the transportation delay is a static delay.

15. The method according to claim 12 wherein the transportation delay is a dynamic delay.

16. The method according to claim 12 wherein a single job has a single home shop.

17. The system according to claim 12 wherein a single job has multiple home shops.

18. The system according to claim 13 wherein the transportation delay further includes transportation cost as part of its optimization objective.

19. The method according to claim 13 wherein the transportation delay further includes production cost as part of its optimization objective.

20. The method according to claim 12 wherein the multi-site scheduler is configured to assign and schedule print jobs in loosely coupled single-site shops where explicit modeling of inter-cell delays is necessary.

21. The method according to claim 12 wherein the multi-site scheduler is configured to operate with a multi-site earliest-completion-time scheduling policy.

22. The method according to claim 12, further including implementing the multi-site scheduler as a plurality of parallel implemented multi-site schedulers.

23. A method of scheduling jobs in shops in a multi-site shop environment comprising:

defining a multi-site environment to include a plurality of individual shops as part of the multi-site environment;

defining jobs to be processed within the multi-site environment as non-outsourceable jobs or as outsourceable jobs;

assigning non-outsourceable jobs to a home shop;

scheduling non-outsourceable jobs in their respectively assigned home shops;

recording the resources needed to complete the respective non-outsourceable jobs in each of the home shops;

assigning all outsourceable jobs to a home shop;

tentatively scheduling jobs in corresponding home shops subject to the allocation of resources;

identifying a completion time and resource allocation for the tentatively scheduled outsourceable jobs in the respective home shops, wherein the completion time is the actual time to complete the outsourceable jobs;

generating a list of non-home shops which have resources to complete the outsourceable jobs;

for each non-home shop on the generated list, tentatively scheduling the outsourceable jobs in each of the non-home shops on the generated list subject to resource availability;

identifying a completion time for the outsourceable jobs tentatively scheduled in the non-home shops and the resource allocation to complete the outsourceable jobs, wherein the completion time is the actual completion time and a transportation delay;

identifying a “

best”

shops to which each of the outsourceable jobs have been tentatively scheduled by comparing completion times; and

formalizing scheduling and resource allocation in selected “

best”

shops.