A low-cost printer array

Abstract

The present invention relates to the field of network printing technology, and in particular to a low-cost printer array, including a Web page, a server, a print controller and several printers. The server receives documents to be printed on the Web page, and evenly distributes printers according to the number of lines occupied by the documents to be printed. The server groups and assembles the documents to be printed by each printer. The server generates a printer task allocation method and transmits it to the Web page. The Web page requests the server to group the printing task. After obtaining the details of the printing task, the server notifies the print controller to distribute the printing instructions, and the print controller drives the corresponding printer group to execute the printing task. The method of the present invention solves the problem of centralized printing of a large number of delivery waybills in a short time, sets a load balancing strategy for the printer, solves the problem of single-machine cache load, and replaces the scenario where a high-speed printer must be used in a low-cost manner. The results of reduced costs and improved reliability are achieved.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] The present invention relates to the technical field of network printing, and in particular to a low-cost printer array. Background Art

[0002] With the rapid development of logistics and warehousing, factors such as picking efficiency, temporary storage area management and distribution planning are taken into consideration in warehouse operations. It is necessary to adopt centralized picking and delivery in batches. The current problem is that after the centralized picking is completed, the delivery waybill needs to be printed centrally. The delivery waybill needs to use a multi-copy waybill, which requires a dot matrix printer. The speed of ordinary dot matrix printers is very slow, resulting in the delivery driver having to wait for the delivery waybill before delivery, wasting transportation capacity. Although purchasing a high-speed line printer reduces waiting time, it is very expensive, the operating cost is more expensive, and because there are fewer maintenance points, the maintenance timeliness is worse. This leads to higher comprehensive maintenance costs and longer waiting time after failure. Summary of the invention

[0003] The present invention provides a low-cost printer array that can be quickly built and greatly reduces costs.

[0004] In order to achieve the purpose of the present invention, the technical solution adopted is: a low-cost printer array, including a Web page, a server, a print controller and several printers, the server receives the documents to be printed on the Web page, the server evenly distributes the printers according to the number of rows occupied by the documents to be printed, the server groups and assembles the documents to be printed by each printer, the server generates a printer task allocation method and transmits it to the Web page, the Web page requests the server to group the printing task, the server obtains the printing task details and notifies the print controller to distribute the printing instructions, and the print controller drives the corresponding printer group to execute the printing task.

[0005] As an optimization solution of the present invention, the document to be printed is a delivery waybill, and the document to be printed adopts three-level sorting. The first level sorting is based on the planned delivery vehicles; the second level sorting is based on the delivery area to which the delivery destination belongs; and the third level sorting is based on the coordinate distance of the delivery destination from the warehouse location.

[0006] As an optimization scheme of the present invention, the printer task allocation method includes an N-type allocation method and a Z-type allocation method. The N-type allocation method is to equally distribute A printing tasks to B printers; the Z-type allocation method is to group A printing tasks into A÷B groups, and each group of B tasks is allocated to B printers respectively until the grouping is completed.

[0007] As an optimization scheme of the present invention, a document template is set for the document to be printed, and the document template includes a header, details and a footer. When the server allocates a printing task, the number of rows of the header and footer is obtained from the document template, and the number of rows of the details in the document template is read, and the number of printed pages is estimated by the number of rows. If it is an N-type allocation method, when it is calculated that a certain printer has a certain document to be printed, which exceeds 30% of the average number of printed pages of each printer, the document to be printed will be placed in the next printer for processing; if it is a Z-type allocation method, when it is calculated that the current printing task accounts for 30% of the total number of printed pages in this batch, the printer in the next batch will be excluded when allocating tasks until the total number of pages of the task is balanced.

[0008] As an optimization solution of the present invention, when the server allocates a printer, a task allocation weight is added, and the task allocation weight is set according to the speed of the printer.

[0009] As an optimization solution of the present invention, the server also allocates printers according to the numbers of the printed documents, and obtains the documents to be printed from the Web page in batches, so that when the printer executes the previous set of printing tasks, the server can simultaneously obtain the next set of printing tasks from the Web page.

[0010] As an optimization solution of the present invention, if a printer fails, a print task allocation page pops up on the Web page, the failed printer is removed, and the Web page recalculates and allocates the printer.

[0011] The present invention has positive effects: the present invention has the following advantages through the configuration of printer clusters: 1) low initial cost: the same printing speed can be obtained at 1 / 6 of the cost of a high-speed printer;

[0012] 2) Low maintenance cost: using ordinary printers, consumables are cheap and maintenance is convenient;

[0013] 3) High reliability: 1-N printers can be removed at any time, and the printing documents will not fail to be printed due to printer failure;

[0014] 4) The method of the present invention for solving the problem of centralized printing of a large number of delivery waybills in a short time includes setting the sorting rules of the delivery waybills; setting the printer scheduling strategy; setting the load balancing strategy of the printer; solving the single machine cache load problem, and replacing the scenario where a high-speed printer must be used in a low-cost manner. The result is a 70% reduction in cost and improved reliability. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0015] The present invention will be further described in detail below in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and specific embodiments.

[0016] Figure 1 It is a schematic diagram of the process of the present invention;

[0017] Figure 2 This is a schematic diagram of a document template. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0018] like Figure 1 As shown, the present invention discloses a low-cost printer array, including a Web page, a server, a print controller and several printers. The server receives the documents to be printed on the Web page, and evenly distributes the printers according to the number of lines occupied by the documents to be printed. The server groups and assembles the documents to be printed by each printer. The server generates a printer task allocation method and transmits it to the Web page. The Web page requests the server to group the printing task. After obtaining the details of the printing task, the server notifies the print controller to distribute the printing instructions, and the print controller drives the corresponding printer group to execute the printing task. The print control notifies the printing result. The print controller starts port 3000 to listen to all print requests. And handles the queue control, notifies the printer to print, and returns the server the ability to print the number of times.

[0019] The documents to be printed are delivery waybills, which need to be sorted before printing. Otherwise, the secondary sorting after printing will still be a disaster. By default, the documents to be printed are sorted in three levels. The first level is sorted by the planned delivery vehicles; the second level is sorted by the delivery area to which the delivery destination belongs; the third level is sorted by the coordinate distance between the delivery destination and the warehouse location.

[0020] Printer task allocation methods include N-type allocation method and Z-type allocation method. The N-type allocation method is to evenly distribute A printing tasks to B printers; the Z-type allocation method is to group A printing tasks into A÷B groups, and each group of B tasks is allocated to B printers respectively until the grouping is completed.

[0021] Suppose there are 10 printers in an array, and there are currently 1,000 printing tasks, and one printer needs to handle 100 tasks on average. The N-shaped allocation method is to fill the first printer with 100 tasks first, and then fill the second printer. The advantage of this method is that after printing is completed, you only need to connect the beginning and the end in sequence to get a complete sequential document. The disadvantage is that drivers who are in a hurry to drive out must wait, and the driver's printing tasks must be printed one by one before they can drive out. The Z-shaped allocation method is that the first group of 10 tasks are allocated to printers 1-10 respectively. Then the second group of 10 printing tasks are allocated to printers 1-10, and this cycle is repeated until the allocation is completed. The advantage of this method is that it can handle the printing of urgent batches very well and can perform printing at a faster speed.

[0022] Set up a document template for the document to be printed, such as Figure 2As shown, the document template includes a header, details and footer, which are located in three boxes from top to bottom. When the server allocates the printing task, the number of rows of the header and footer is obtained from the document template, and the number of rows of the details in the document template is read. The number of printed pages is estimated by the number of rows. If it is an N-shaped allocation method, when it is calculated that a certain printer exceeds 30% of the average number of printed pages of each printer due to a certain document to be printed, the document to be printed is placed in the next printer for processing; if it is a Z-shaped allocation method, when it is calculated that the current printing task accounts for 30% of the total number of printed pages in this batch, the printer in the next batch will be excluded when the task is allocated until the total number of pages of the task is balanced. The problem of load balancing of printing tasks: Printer tasks are not the same size. For example, a document has 300 rows of detail lines, while some documents have only 3 rows of details. This will cause an unbalanced load on the printer. The longest document will become the shortest template for the printer speed. The present invention sets a document template. From a business perspective, the content of the header and footer will vary for each order, but the number of rows occupied is generally the same. The number of rows in the detail part is completely different for each order. By reading the template information, calculate the number of rows in the header and footer, and read the document data information, or the total number of rows. Estimate the number of pages to be printed based on the number of rows. Considering the principle that the same order should be printed from the same printer, calculate and distribute the printed orders.

[0023] If it is N-type allocation method: when calculating that a certain printer prints more than 30% of the average number of pages per printer due to a certain order, the order will be placed in the next printer for processing.

[0024] If it is a Z-shaped allocation method: when calculating the current batch of printing tasks, when there are orders that account for 30% of the total printed pages of this batch, the printer in the next batch will be excluded and not allocated when allocating tasks until the total number of pages of the tasks is balanced.

[0025] When the server allocates printers, it increases the task allocation weight, and the task allocation weight is set according to the speed of the printer. The problem of printer load balancing: the printers may be of different models. The printing speeds of different models of printers are not the same. For example, the printing speeds of Epson630K and Epson630KII differ by 1 times. The slowest printer will become the shortcoming of printing speed. The present invention adds a task allocation weight to the configuration of the printing array, and the default is 1. If there is a printer with a faster speed, it can be configured to 2, and the others are all 1. When assigning tasks, a weighted polling algorithm is used to schedule the printers more evenly. That is, the printer with a faster speed will be assigned more printing tasks.

[0026] The server also allocates printers according to the numbers of the printed documents, and the server obtains the documents to be printed from the Web page in batches, so that when the printer executes the previous set of printing tasks, the server can simultaneously obtain the next set of printing tasks from the Web page. Print controller cache problem: Since a large number of documents need to be printed in batches in a short period of time, if all the information with printed documents is to be found at one time, such as the main body and detailed information of 1,000 documents. It takes a long time to wait, which will also bring huge pressure. The present invention first generates an allocation plan based on the printing task document number and the number of lines occupied by each document. The printed message information is obtained from the server in batches and pushed to the printing service. Each batch is just enough to start all printers. Use the printer's printing working time to pull the next batch of documents to be printed and give them to the printer for printing.

[0027] If a printer fails, the web page will pop up the print task allocation page, remove the failed printer, and recalculate the printer allocation. That is, if a device in the printer group has a fault: the print task allocation page pops up, remove this device, and the page will call the background interface to recalculate the print task allocation. This printer can be skipped until the fault is eliminated.

[0028] The specific embodiments described above further illustrate the objectives, technical solutions and beneficial effects of the present invention in detail. It should be understood that the above description is only a specific embodiment of the present invention and is not intended to limit the present invention. Any modifications, equivalent substitutions, improvements, etc. made within the spirit and principles of the present invention should be included in the protection scope of the present invention.

Claims

1. A low-cost printer array, characterized in that: It includes a Web page, a server, a printing controller and several printers. The server receives the documents to be printed on the Web page, and evenly distributes the printers according to the number of lines occupied by the documents to be printed. The server groups and assembles the documents to be printed by each printer. The server generates a printer task allocation method and transmits it to the Web page. The Web page requests the server to group the printing task. After obtaining the printing task details, the server notifies the printing controller to distribute the printing instructions, and the printing controller drives the corresponding printer group to execute the printing task. Printer task allocation methods include N-shaped allocation method and Z-shaped allocation method. The N-shaped allocation method is to evenly allocate A printing tasks to B printers; The Z-shaped allocation method is to group A print tasks into A÷B groups, and each group of B tasks is allocated to B printers respectively until the grouping is completed; Set a document template for the document to be printed. The document template includes a header, details and footer. When the server allocates the printing task, it obtains the number of rows of the header and footer from the document template, and reads the number of rows of the details in the document template. The number of pages to be printed is estimated by the number of rows. If it is an N-shaped allocation method, when it is calculated that a certain printer has a certain document to be printed, and the number of pages to be printed exceeds 30% of the average number of pages printed by each printer, the document to be printed will be placed in the next printer for processing; If it is a Z-shaped allocation method, when it is calculated that the current printing task accounts for 30% of the total printed pages of this batch, the printer will be excluded from the next batch when allocating tasks until the total number of pages of the tasks is balanced.

2. A low-cost printer array according to claim 1, characterized in that: The document to be printed is a delivery waybill. The document to be printed adopts three-level sorting. The first level sorting is based on the planned delivery vehicles; the second level sorting is based on the delivery area to which the delivery destination belongs; the third level sorting is based on the coordinate distance between the delivery destination and the warehouse location.

3. A low-cost printer array according to claim 2, characterized in that: When the server allocates a printer, it increases the task allocation weight, and the task allocation weight is set according to the speed of the printer.

4. A low-cost printer array according to claim 3, characterized in that: The server also allocates printers according to the numbers of the printed documents, and obtains the documents to be printed from the Web page in batches, so that when the printer executes the previous set of printing tasks, the server can simultaneously obtain the next set of printing tasks from the Web page.

5. A low-cost printer array according to claim 3, characterized in that: If a printer fails, a print task allocation page will pop up on the web page. Remove the failed printer and the web page will recalculate and allocate the printer.

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