Managing print jobs

Details Managing print jobs Managing print jobs

2000-04-25

2003-11-18

Garcia, Gabriel (Department: 2624)

Facsimile and static presentation processing

Static presentation processing

Communication

C358S001100

Reexamination Certificate

active

06650433

ABSTRACT:

TECHNICAL FIELD
This invention relates to managing print jobs.
BACKGROUND
Short-run print jobs, e.g., business cards, letterheads, sell sheets, invitations, announcements, folders, brochures, and marketing materials, are generally printed by commercial printers using relatively small, low cost printing equipment. Because of the set-up time involved in changing from one print job to the next, and the relatively low volumes printed (often less than 1000 units/order), the printing cost is typically relatively high, e.g., $20-50 per thousand square inches (“MSI”). In some cases, several print jobs are manually “ganged” together (consolidated or aggregated) onto a single master, in an attempt to reduce the average set-up time per order. Another strategy for controlling cost, employed by printers of products such as invitations, office stationery, and address labels, is to offer customers a limited selection of papers, formats and colors from which to choose.
Printing costs per MSI are much lower for high-volume high-quality full-color publishing and packaging print jobs, e.g., food labels, consumer good packaging, magazines, catalogues and high volume marketing materials. Publishing and packaging printing is generally done using large, expensive offset printing presses (either web press or sheet feeding of large-format paper stock) in a highly automated large-volume manufacturing environment. Because these presses have high set-up and amortization costs, their use has been focused on long print runs that are typical in the packaging and publishing segments of the printing market.
Attempts have been made to reduce the high cost of short-run printing. Set-up costs may be reduced by using rapid changeover production machinery, digital technologies, thermographic printing, or single-color offset printing. Typically, these techniques assume that each print job is to be processed as a discrete production run subject to economies of scale based on the quantity of that print job.
Another approach has been to preprint high volumes of a standard base product (e.g., invitation “blanks” bearing high quality color graphics) using high quality offset printing, and then to overprint variable, custom text (e.g., the text of the invitation) for each order, typically using simpler printing processes and conventional short run printing methods.
Yet another approach has been to reduce the cost of setting up a print job by letting the customer, or an intermediary other than the printer, be responsible for the layout, sales and administration aspects of the customer's order. For example, some companies, such as Hallmark, have provided WYSIWYG (“what you see is what you get”) terminals at which a customer can view a WYSIWYG display of the item to be printed, and then upload information regarding the print job to a local or remote printing site. Another example of this approach is desktop publishing software, which allows a customer to design a print job on-screen.
Computers have been used to reduce cost and improve efficiency of printing processes, e.g., to make the process of page layout, proofing, approvals and transmission to the printing floor more efficient. For example, in the newspaper and printing industries, on-the-fly page markups have been sent directly to the production floor using digital workflow technology. Prepress software and equipment that automates workflow is also used by printers and graphics professionals. Recently, Internet companies such as Noosh and Impresse have been providing services that improve the efficiency of buyer-seller transactions involving printing, e.g., by giving users of their websites the ability to “connect” with a wide variety of print vendors, from short-run demand printers to long-run offset printers.
SUMMARY
The invention features method for managing print jobs.
In one aspect, the invention features a method including (a) accumulating discrete print jobs electronically from respective customers, (b) aggregating the discrete print jobs into aggregate print jobs, each of the aggregate print jobs being printable at one time on units of an integral print medium, and (b) electronically distributing the aggregate print jobs to respective printers for printing.
Implementations of this aspect of the invention may include one or more of the following features. The integral print medium may include cut sheets of paper, or large rolls of paper designed for use on offset printing web presses, e.g., rolls having roll widths of 20 inches or more. The print jobs are accumulated through web browsers. Printing of the aggregate print jobs is done during periods of otherwise unused capacity. Each of the discrete print jobs includes a run of fewer than 5,000 copies. Printing is done on large-scale offset full-color presses. Aggregating is done automatically.
In another aspect, the invention features a method including (a) defining a two-dimensional grid of discrete print jobs, the print jobs occupying positions along the two dimensions of the grid, the grid corresponding to a substrate to be printed, the print jobs being arranged on the grid so that at least at some different positions along each of the two dimensions of the grid are print jobs that have different content to be printed on the substrate, (b) printing the print jobs on the substrate at their respective positions defined by the grid, (c) cutting the substrate to separate the print jobs, and (d) distributing at least some of the separated print jobs to different customer locations. In some implementations, the print jobs are in different formats, and all of the print jobs are printed on the substrate at one time.
In a further aspect, the invention features a method including defining a two-dimensional grid of discrete print jobs, the print jobs occupying positions along the two dimensions of the grid, the grid corresponding to cut sheets of a substrate to be printed, printing the print jobs on each of the sheets at their respective positions defined by the grid, and cutting the sheets of the substrate along each of the two dimensions to separate the print jobs into rectangular stacks. In some implementations, each stack defines a separate print job.
The invention also features a method including defining a two-dimensional grid of discrete print jobs, the print jobs occupying positions along the two dimensions of the grid, the grid corresponding to a non-preprinted substrate to be printed, printing the print jobs on each of the sheets at their respective positions defined by the grid, and cutting the sheets of the substrate along each of the two dimensions to separate the print jobs.
In another aspect, the invention features a method including defining a two-dimensional grid of discrete print jobs, the print jobs occupying positions along the two dimensions of the grid, the grid corresponding to a substrate to be printed, printing the print jobs in full color on each of the sheets at their respective positions defined by the grid, and cutting the sheets of the substrate along each of the two dimensions to separate the print jobs.
In a further aspect, the invention features a method including receiving orders for discrete print jobs from customers, each of the orders being received at an associated ordering time, each of the orders having an associated delivery time, the periods between the ordering times and the delivery times of at least some of the print jobs being different, aggregating a set of the print jobs that have essentially the same associated delivery time into an aggregate print job to be printed at one time on shared substrate units, and arranging for the production of the aggregate print job at a time that is just ahead of the delivery time. In some implementations, the method also includes adjusting the prices of the discrete print jobs based on the period between the ordering time and the delivery time. The method may also include arranging for the production during periods of unused printing capacity.
The invention also features a method including offering the printing of discrete print jobs

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