METHOD FOR AUTOMATICALLY CONTROLLING THE SEQUENCE OF PROCESSING ORDERS FOR PROCESSING MATERIAL CONTAINERS

• US 20110311287A1
• Filed: 02/09/2010
• Published: 12/22/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 02/18/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oce Printing Systems GmbH (Canon Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Oce Printing Systems GmbH (Canon Inc.)
• Inventors: Has, Michael, Weiner, Helmut
• Granted Patent: US 8,634,731 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 400/76
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1204 resulting in reduced user or operator actions, e.g. presetting, automatic actions, using hardware token storing data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1262 by grouping or ganging jobs
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1288 in client-server-printer device configuration

Abstract

In a method or system for automatic controlling of jobs to be processed, the jobs to be associated with input and output material bundles, the jobs to be processed are collected into multiple groups or clusters. The groups or clusters are automatically sorted according to rules. The input material bundles are fed to a processing device at a central station, at least one post-processing apparatus being connected to and down stream from the processing device.

Claims

1-18. -18. (canceled)

19. A method for automatic controlling of jobs to be processed, said jobs to be associated with input and output material bundles, comprising the steps of:

collecting the jobs to be processed into multiple groups or clusters;

automatically sorting the groups or clusters according to rules; and

feeding the input material bundles to a processing device at a central station, a plurality of post-processing apparatuses being connected to and downstream from said processing device.

20. The method of claim 19 wherein the material bundles are of predetermined bundle processing length, the jobs being processed are distributed to multiple material bundles, and before and during the processing the material bundles are supplied by means of the input bundles to the processing device, individual processing jobs segments of different length being processed, and the processed segments of the material bundle being collected into the output bundles, and wherein before the processing

the jobs to be processed are collected into said multiple groups so that a total length of the segments of the jobs to be processed of each group designated as a group length lies in a range between a desired length and the bundle processing length for multiple groups;

the desired length being smaller by a predetermined threshold than the bundle processing length, and, given a group for which no group length can be determined in a range between the desired length and the bundle processing length, an additional job to be processed is subdivided into a first and a second partial processing job such that the segment of the first partial job to be processed corresponds to a difference from the processing bundle length and the group length and is added to the group as a last job to be processed, and the second partial job to be processed is added to an additional group as a first job to be processed that is executed following the group with the first partial job to be processed; and

the jobs to be processed of each group are executed in succession, and given group lengths whose length amounts to at least the desired length, the input bundle with which the material bundle has been supplied to process these jobs to be processed and the output bundle in which the processed material bundle is collected are exchanged simultaneously.

21. The method according to claim 20 wherein multiple associations of jobs to be processed are determined for a group, and a remainder of the bundle processing length minus the group length is calculated for each association, wherein the association is associated with a smallest remainder of the group when the group length is between the desired length and the bundle processing length.

22. The method according to claim 21 wherein the multiple associations are determined in that, after the determination of an association of document jobs to be processed, a last gapless sequence of the document jobs to be processed of the association is canceled and a new association is determined provided that additional suitable document jobs to be processed are present.

23. The method according to claim 19 wherein the jobs to be processed have different lengths and the material bundles respectively have a predetermined bundle processing length such that the jobs to be processed are distributed to multiple material bundles, a respective group is associated with each material bundle, and the collection of the jobs to be processed into multiple groups is executed such that a total length of the jobs to be processed of a group is as often as possible not smaller than a desired length that is slightly less than the bundle processing length, such that an input bundle and an output bundle can be exchanged simultaneously in the processing of such a group.

24. The method according to claim 19 wherein the material bundle comprises a material web, the input bundle is an input roll, the output bundle is an output roll, and a bundle processing length is a web length, wherein the material webs are supplied to the processing device on input rolls and are rolled up on output rolls after processing.

25. The method according to claim 19 wherein the input bundle comprises a bundle stack of sheets of predefined number and predetermined size, the input bundle is an input stack, the output bundle is an output stack, and a bundle processing length is a bundle length across all sheets of the bundle stack, the bundle stack being supplied as said input stack to the processing device and being stacked up as said output stack after the processing.

26. The method according to claim 19 wherein one or more of the following rules are applied for the sorting the clusters or groups:

the groups are sorted depending on a throughput of the post-processing apparatuses, wherein the post-processing apparatuses are utilized uniformly with groups of jobs to be processed and more groups of document jobs to be processed are associated with the post-processing apparatuses that have a higher throughput;

groups with similar document jobs to be processed are sorted in succession so that a number of refitting processes is low and/or, depending on a necessary refitting time, a number of transmitted groups of document jobs to be processed that are processed by a post-processing apparatus to be refitted is reduced in order to not cause a backup at the post-processing apparatus;

an order of the individual groups is determined depending on their content, and a priority of the group in the order of the groups is determined depending on an urgency notation and/or the number of urgency notations; and

the groups of document jobs to be processed are sorted depending on inventories of unprinted recording materials and/or printed products, wherein a high inventory of a specific type of recording material is executed with priority, and given a high inventory of a specific product the group of document jobs to be processed that lead to generation of the product is sorted with low priority in a series in order to not unnecessarily increase the inventory.

27. The method according to claim 19 wherein the jobs to be processed are document jobs.

28. The method according to claim 19 wherein the jobs to be processed within the groups or clusters are sorted according to urgency notations contained in the jobs to be processed.

29. The method according to claim 19 wherein before the formation of groups the jobs to be processed are sorted automatically into predetermined classes using relevant properties, the groups being respectively formed within the respective classes, and each of the jobs to be processed is subjected to the following steps for sorting into classes:

extract properties relevant to sorting into classes comprising at least one of the properties format, substrate or paper type, color space for use, features of post-processing process and/or economic features, and shelf lives of unprinted recording material or printed products, and

associate the document jobs to be processed with respective classes corresponding to the extracted properties.

30. The method according to claim 19 wherein before the formation of the groups the jobs to be processed are automatically collected into clusters using the same or at least similar properties of the jobs to be processed;

and the groups are respectively formed within the respective clusters, wherein relevant properties are format, substrate or paper type, color space to be used, features of post-processing process and/or economic features, and shelf lives of unprinted recording material or printed products.

31. The method according to claim 19 wherein the following steps are executed to collect the material bundles into groups:

sort the jobs to be processed according to their size;

select largest available jobs to be processed and associate these jobs to be processed with a group;

add the largest available job to be processed that still fits on a material web to the group;

repeat the preceding step until no additional job to be processed that can be associated with the group is available, wherein a group length is not greater than a web length;

check whether the group length is greater than or equal to a desired length and, if this is the case, an additional group of jobs to be processed is generated according to the first four steps in the event that jobs to be processed are still present that are not associated with any group; and

in the event that the group length is smaller than the desired length, one or more jobs to be processed are removed from the group and replaced by multiple jobs to be processed that are all smaller than the longest removed job to be processed wherein upon removal of a job to be processed from the group, the following steps are executed when the group length is smaller than the desired length;

remove the last two associated jobs to be processed;

add a next smallest job to be processed relative to a largest of the two removed jobs to be processed;

check whether free jobs to be processed can still be added to the group so that they still fit on a material bundle, wherein if this is possible a next largest free job to be processed is added, and if this is not possible then the first four steps are repeated; and

subdividing a job to be processed if it is established in the first step that no smaller jobs to be processed are present.

32. The method according to claim 31 wherein different sets of groups are generated by means of a Monte Carlo method, and for each set of groups a cost measurement is calculated and the set with the lowest cost measurement is selected.

33. The method according to claim 31 wherein different sets of groups are generated by means of systematic exchange of the order, and for each set of groups a cost measurement is calculated, and the set with the lowest cost measurement is selected.

34. The method according to claim 19 wherein a total length of all jobs to be processed is initially determined to collect the jobs to be processed into groups, and using the total length a minimum number of output rolls is determined.

35. A non-transitory, tangible computer readable medium having a computer program embodied thereon for automatic controlling of jobs to be processed, said jobs to be associated with input and output material bundles, said program performing the steps of:

collecting the jobs to be processed into multiple groups or clusters;

automatically sorting the groups or clusters according to rules; and

feeding the input material bundles to a processing device at a central station, a plurality of post-processing apparatuses being connected to and down stream from said processing device.

36. A printing system, comprising:

a printing apparatus;

a print server connected with the printing apparatus; and

said print server automatically controlling jobs to be processed, said jobs to be associated with input and output material bundles, said print server

collecting the jobs to be processed into multiple groups or clusters,

automatically sorting the groups or clusters according to rules, and

feeding the input material bundles to a processing device at a central station, a plurality of post-processing apparatuses being connected to and downstream from said processing device.

37. A method for automatic controlling of jobs to be processed, said jobs to be associated with input and output material bundles, comprising the steps of:

collecting the jobs to be processed into multiple groups or clusters;

automatically sorting the groups or clusters according to rules such that the output material bundle is formed of only one or more complete jobs and said input material bundles do not run out before a last job being processed is completed; and

feeding the input material bundles to a processing device at a central station, at least one post-processing apparatus being connected to and down stream from said processing device.