System and method for multi-site cellular manufacturing with transportation delays

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10732913-B2
Application number	US-201113156573-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jun 9, 2011
Priority date	Jun 9, 2011
Publication date	Aug 4, 2020
Grant date	Aug 4, 2020

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.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system for managing scheduling of a plurality of jobs in a multi-site cell based shop environment comprising:
a plurality of cell based print shops having resources and equipment to complete at least one type of job; and
a multi-site cell based scheduler configured to automatically assign and schedule jobs to one of a home shop or a non-home shop, based on an earliest completion time, each of the plurality of scheduled jobs configured to specify its home shop, wherein the home shop includes all equipment and resources necessary for producing and completing a job, wherein a completion time of a job in a particular home shop is defined as an actual time taken to complete the job and a completion time of a job in a particular non-home shop is defined as the actual time taken to complete the job and a transportation delay, wherein the transportation delay is defined as a time taken in hours to transport a completed job from the particular non-home shop to the completed job's home shop, wherein resources are tentatively allocated and a schedule is tentatively generated for both the home shop and for the particular non-home shop to both produce the print job in accordance with print data corresponding to the print job, the resources including at least equipment, operators, and consumables needed to complete the job, wherein the transportation delay is determined via a transportation delay matrix generated in accordance with symmetric and asymmetric delays corresponding to transportation of the print job to and from each non-home shop and the home shop, wherein at least one of the asymmetric delays includes a security constraint such that the home shop includes a first security clearance level and a non-home shop includes a second security clearance level, wherein the first security clearance level and the second security clearance level are neither more nor less secure than the other such that the first and second security levels are incompatible, wherein the security constraint is enforced by modeling the transportation delay between the home shop and the non-home shop as an infinite transportation delay to the at least one of the home shop or the non-home shop, and wherein the multi-site cell based scheduler is implemented using at least one electronic processor.

2. The system according to claim 1 wherein the transportation delay is a static delay, defining a time needed to ship the completed job to the competed job's home shop from the particular non-home shop.

3. The system according to claim 1 wherein the transportation delay is a dynamically changing delay, defining a time needed to ship the completed job to the completed job's home shop from the particular non-home shop.

4. The system according to claim 1 wherein a single job has a single home shop, the home shop including all necessary resources to complete the single job.

5. The system according to claim 1 wherein a single job has multiple home shops, the home shops each including all necessary resources to complete the job, the resources including at least two of equipment, consumables, and operators.

6. The system according to claim 1 wherein the transportation delay further includes transportation cost.

7. The system according to claim 1 wherein the transportation delay further includes production cost.

8. The system according to claim 1 wherein the multi-site cell based scheduler is configured to assign and schedule print jobs in loosely coupled single-site shops by explicit modeling of inter-cell delays, wherein at least one of the inter-cell delays corresponds to an operator resource.

9. The system according to claim 1 wherein the multi-site cell based scheduler is configured to operate with a multi-site earliest-completion-time scheduling policy, wherein the earliest-completion-time includes delays attributable to an operator resource.

10. The system according to claim 1 , wherein the multi-site cell based scheduler is a distributed configuration wherein portions of the multi-site scheduler are at different print shop locations.

11. The system according to claim 1 , wherein each of the plurality of jobs is defined as outsourceable or non-outsourceable, wherein an outsourceable job is available to be sent to a non-home shop and a non-outsourceable job is required to be maintained in its own home shop.

12. A method for managing a scheduling of a plurality of print jobs in a multi-site cell based print shop environment comprising:
defining a plurality of cell based print shops having resources and equipment to complete at least one type of print job as part of a multi-site cell based printing environment; and
configuring a multi-site cell based scheduler to automatically assign and schedule print jobs to one of a home shop and a non-home shop, based on an earliest completion time, each of the plurality of scheduled jobs configured to specify its home shop, wherein the home shop includes all equipment and resources necessary for producing a job, wherein a completion time of a print job in a particular home shop is defined as an actual time taken to complete the print job and a completion time of a print job in a particular non-home shop is defined as the actual time taken to complete the print job and a transportation delay, wherein the transportation delay is defined as a time taken to transport a completed job from the particular non-home shop to the completed job's home shop, wherein resources are tentatively allocated and a schedule is tentatively generated for both the home shop and for the particular non-home shop for print data corresponding to the print job to both produce the print job, wherein the transportation delay is determined via a transportation delay matrix generated in accordance with symmetric and asymmetric delays corresponding to transportation of the print job to and from each non-home shop and the home shop, wherein at least one of the asymmetric delays includes a security constraint such that the home shop includes a first security clearance level and a non-home shop includes a second security clearance level, wherein the first security clearance level and the second security clearance level are neither more nor less secure than the other such that the first and second security levels are incompatible, wherein the security constraint is enforced by modeling the transportation delay between the home shop and the non-home shop as an infinite transportation delay to the at least one of the home shop or the non-home shop, and wherein the multi-site cell based scheduler is implemented using at least one electronic processor.

13. The method according to claim 12 wherein the transportation delay is a static delay, defining a time needed to ship the completed job to the completed job's home shop from the particular non-home shop.

14. The method according to claim 12 wherein the transportation delay is a dynamic delay, defining a time needed to ship the completed job to the completed job's home shop from the particular non-home shop.

15. The method according to claim 12 wherein a single job has a single home shop, the home shop including all resources necessary to output the single job.

16. The system according to claim 12 wherein a single job has multiple home shops, the home shops each including all necessary resources to complete the job, the resources including at least two of equipment, consumables, and operators.

17. The system according to claim 12 wherein the transportation delay further includes transportation cost as part of its optimization objective.

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Assignees

• Zhou Rong
• Rai Sudhendu
• Do Minh Binh
• Lambrecht Craig
• Xerox Corp

Inventors

• Zhou Rong
• Rai Sudhendu
• Do Minh Binh
• Lambrecht Craig

Classifications

• G06Q10/0631

  Resource planning, allocation, distributing or scheduling for enterprises or organisations · CPC title

• G06F3/1238

  Secure printing, e.g. user identification, user rights for device usage, unallowed content, blanking portions or fields of a page, releasing held jobs · CPC title

• G06F3/1282 Primary

  High volume printer device · CPC title

• H04N1/32545

  Distributing a job or task among a plurality of input devices or a plurality of output devices · CPC title

• G06F3/126

  Job scheduling, e.g. queuing, determine appropriate device · CPC title