Automatic load balancer for presses

摘要

A press load balancer automatically balances the printing load over a number of presses by taking into account the load on each press and the substrates (i.e., paper types) and inks installed on the presses to improve throughput while minimizing load on the press operators.

主权项

1. A method for load balancing presses, comprising:
monitoring the presses; monitoring post-raster image processor (RIP) queues on a network accessible storage (NAS) server; periodically allocating print jobs in the post-RIP queues to the presses based on monitoring the presses and monitoring the post-RIP queues, the print jobs being in native format of the presses, wherein periodically allocating the print jobs comprises: identifying available presses; identifying a highest priority print job in the post-RIP queues; determining a required option for the highest priority print job; identifying a set of the available presses that has the required option for the highest priority print job installed; when there is more than one press in the set: selecting a set of preferred presses from the set of the available presses; determining a least loaded press from the set of preferred presses; and allocating the highest priority print job to the least loaded press from the set of preferred presses, wherein the highest print job is moved from its post-RIP queue to a press loader queue for the least loaded press from the set of preferred presses; when none of the available presses have the required option for the highest priority print job installed: identifying another set of the available presses specified for the required option for the highest priority print job; identifying a least loaded press from the other set of the available presses; and allocating the highest priority print job to the least loaded press from the other set of the available presses, wherein the highest priority print job is moved from its post-RIP queue to a press loader queue for the least loaded press from the other set of the available presses; and moving the allocated print jobs to press loader queues on the NAS server, each press loader queue being assigned to a corresponding press.