Method and apparatus for managing job contention for system resources in an electrographic reproduction system where images are multibanded

摘要

A method and apparatus for prioritizing the use of multifunctional printing system's basic processing resources for multiple banded image processing. The printing system employs a controller with an improved job contention manager (JCM). A plurality of basic resources of the printing system are provided with a queue. One or more job services, at desired times, signals the JCM to transfer a multiple banded image sub-job of a given job. The signal for each of the bands of the sub-job includes information about the respective sub-job's priority, band number and total band count for the image. Responsive to the signal from the job service the JCM adds a corresponding basic resource sub-job to the queues of each basic resourse which the sub-job will require to perform the sub-job. When the last band of an image has been transferred it is merged into a single image for further processing.