Digital Print Shop Matching for Machinery Utilization
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current digital workflows in the printing industry fail to effectively match print jobs with suitable print shops, leading to underutilization of machinery as they only consider print jobs from a customer's perspective, neglecting the potential for optimizing machinery usage.
Innovation Solution
A method that uses digital models of print products and print shops to automatically match print jobs with compatible print shops, utilizing a network connection to compare customer requests with available machinery capabilities and preferences, ensuring optimal assignment of print jobs based on compatibility and economic viability.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If the current digital workflow is used where print shops analyze their own capabilities to find suitable print jobs, then the customer's print job can be processed, but the machinery utilization time cannot be optimized because the process is viewed exclusively from the customer's perspective
Solution Approach 1:
The patent inverts the traditional matching approach by having the system (rather than individual print shops) analyze and match print jobs to print shops based on machinery capabilities. The central system receives print job data, compares it with stored print shop models, and identifies suitable matches, thereby enabling machinery utilization optimization while maintaining adaptability to different print job requirements
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a central matching system as an intermediary between customers and print shops. This intermediary system contains databases of print shop models and print job models, and performs the matching analysis, thereby resolving the contradiction by providing both productivity optimization through centralized analysis and adaptability through comprehensive capability matching
2Productivity
If automated digital matching is implemented to optimize machinery utilization, then productivity improves, but the complexity of the system increases due to multiple digital models and comparisons
Solution Approach 1:
The patent uses digital models (copies) of print shops and print jobs to perform matching operations. Instead of directly analyzing physical machinery capabilities, the system works with simplified digital representations stored in databases, thereby reducing the effective complexity of the matching process while maintaining comprehensive matching capabilities
Solution Approach 2:
The patent performs preliminary actions by pre-storing digital models of print shops and their machinery capabilities in databases before actual matching occurs. This preliminary structuring of data enables efficient automated matching when print jobs are received, reducing the complexity of real-time decision-making while maintaining high productivity
Data Source
AI summary
A method of manufacturing print products uses a computer and a printing or further processing machine with a network connection. A customer-requested print product is compared to digital print product models on the computer, and the best matching digital print product model is selected by the computer from the comparison between the saved digital print product models and the customer-requested print product. The computer checks digital print shop models for compatibility with the selected digital print product model, compares the digital print shop model selected as suitable to saved preference models of actual print shops and selects matching preference models of actual print shops for producing the customer-requested print job. After the customer's computer selects at least one suitable actual print shop, the customer-requested print job is produced on at least one printing or further processing machine of the print shop selected by the customer.