A BOOK MANUFACTURING SYSTEM

摘要

A book manufacturing system has an order server (30) for interfacing with customers to receive book orders, and for generating an electronic order including book manufacturing parameters and an address for at least one document of content for the book. A production server (32, 60) parses the book order to automatically generate a unique multi-component identifier for the book in which at least some identifier components specify book manufacturing stage instructions. It also writes the identifier to a production database (61) job ticket, and to each document for the book. The production server (32, 60) generates document printing instructions according to the job ticket (61), and transmits (71) said instructions to selected digital printers. Each digital printer operates in response to instructions to print (73, 74) book pages or a cover in which at least one page includes the unique book identifier. Manufacturing stations perform a manufacturing stage downstream from printing. Each receives printed pages or a cover, reads the printed identifier, and transmits at least a component of the identifier to the production server. The production server transmits manufacturing stage instructions to manufacturing stations in response to receiving an identifier upload, and each manufacturing station operates (76, 82, 111) in response to the received manufacturing stage instructions to perform the manufacturing stage and route the pages to a next manufacturing station.