EP1934896A1

EP1934896A1 - Method for the planning and control of jobs and management information system

Info

Publication number: EP1934896A1
Application number: EP05794767A
Authority: EP
Inventors: Thomas Reichhart
Original assignee: Hiflex Software GmbH
Current assignee: Hiflex Software GmbH
Priority date: 2005-10-06
Filing date: 2005-10-06
Publication date: 2008-06-25
Also published as: US20080243285A1; WO2007042055A8; WO2007042055A1

Abstract

A method for planning and control of jobs is disclosed, wherein work steps (10, 11 - 19) are organised for the jobs with cost centres of limited capacity based on logical connections of the work steps (10, 11 - 19), determining a temporal sequence for carrying out the work steps (10, 11 - 19) and on the predicted duration of the execution of the work steps (10, 11 - 19) at the cost centres, with generation of a representation of a sequence for execution of the work steps (10, 11 - 19) of the job for each job, based on the organisation and also, for each cost centre, a work job with each work step (10, 11 - 19) to be carried out and furthermore, a management information system for organization and control of jobs for the production of printed items (1) in a networked graphic production with an organizing module, by means of which the work steps (10, 11 - 19) of the jobs are organized at cost centres with limited capacity and for generation, for each job, of a representation of a sequence for execution of the work steps (10, 11 - 19) of the job and, for each cost centre, a work job with each work step (10, 11 - 19) to be carried out and comprising a control module by means of which the execution of the work steps (10, 11 - 19) may be controlled. According to the invention, the planning, calculation and presentation expense for non-bottleneck cost centres can be reduced without losing information crucial for the control wherein the work job is a to-do-list for the non-bottleneck cost centre. Within the organization for the work steps (10, 11 - 19) to be carried out, no sequence is determined nor are such non-bottleneck cost centres definable in the management information system.

Description

Procedure for scheduling and controlling orders and management information system

On the one hand, the invention relates to a method for scheduling and controlling orders, wherein working steps of the orders on cost centers with limited capacities based on logical operations that determine a chronological order of execution of the steps, and on expected durations of execution of the work on the cost centers be based on the disposition both for each job a representation of a sequence of execution of the steps of the job as well as for each cost center a work order with the respective steps to be executed is created, and further a management information system for the disposition and control of orders for Production of printing units in a networked graphic production with a disposition module, by means of which work steps of the orders can be arranged on cost centers with limited capacities, for each order ag is a representation of a sequence of execution of the steps of the job and for each cost center a work order with the respective steps to be executed can be created, and with a control module, by means of which the execution of the steps is controllable.

Such methods are commonly referred to as "production planning and control" (PPS) procedures, taking into account the available capacities of the cost centers and their associated executing systems in scheduling deadlines to avoid uneven loading and especially congestion of cost centers "Capacity scheduling" for the disposition is expressed. "Scheduling" refers to the assignment of work steps to available cost centers, taking into account scheduling specifications, logical relationships within an order, and limitations on the respective capacity of the cost center.The ideal goal of scheduling is the reliable delivery of all orders at the minimum cost at the desired delivery date. By contrast, the term "passing through scheduling" as an equally well-known counter term for capacity scheduling designates a planning without taking into account the available capacities, ie in the classical sense no disposition: For a cost center, on the work steps By means of a continuous scheduling are planned, the work steps are compiled only in the manner of a "to-do list", ie without time limits for start and finish dates.

Disposition is generally based on one of the equally well-known methods of network planning technology, with the help of which on the one hand the logical relationships of a job from the beginning to the end of the execution are presented clearly, vividly and meaningfully. On the other hand, a timetable that covers all stages of the job can be developed to identify a critical path and resource bottlenecks that could jeopardize compliance with the deadline. The representation of the sequence of execution of the work steps of a job in a network is the basis of the control of the execution of the job in terms of a continuous project control and deadline monitoring related to the individual steps.

Within the framework of the network planning technique, a work step (or "process") is a delimited work unit that starts at a certain point in time and terminates at a certain later point in time.The task of the network planning technique is to determine the duration of the individual work steps on the one hand and their dependencies on the other The execution of a job is done in a "network" by nodes and these connecting arrows: After the "Event node method" (in particular "Critical Path Method", CPM), the steps are indicated by arrows and the respective start and end times as "events" represented by nodes, according to the "process node method" (in particular, "Metra Potential Method", MPM), the nodes represent the steps and the arrows whose logical relationships.

A management information system (MIS) of the type mentioned above, which realizes a disposition and control method described above, is generally known from the Applicant's home under the product name "HIFLEX" (www.hiflex.de) A disposition module of the known system is used Each work step has a cost center start and an end date in the known system, in each case, and between these dates, the scheduling module schedules on a minute or so. precise basis and automatically calculates a production plan. An operator of the system can, inter alia, manually intervene in the determination of the production plan by means of a graphical overview of the occupied and free capacities of the individual cost centers, for example by assigning priorities or by setting fixed dates. Bottleneck cost centers, critical paths and dates are highlighted in color on the screen in tabular overviews, networks and over the time axis in bar charts ("Gantt charts") and can thus be identified at an early stage.

In the known system, each work step is planned and controlled in detail to execute an order. During the execution of an order, the known system uses the production plan and allows an assignment of confirmations, which are generated from manual inputs to PDC terminals as well as from automatically executed working steps by the connected executing systems, in particular to the milestones defined in the scheduling module ,

In the known system, such steps are planned in detail according to the rules developed by the consortium "International Cooperation for the Integration of Processes in Prepress, Press and Postpress" ("CIP4 Consortium", www.cip4.org) Reasons actually do not require detailed scheduling. For example, in the field of prepress page and printing plate production, the actual printing the exposure of a plate and postpress binding, packaging and shipping a finished printing in the rule is not a bottleneck. Also the detailed detailed sequence of outsourced work, for the overcapacity in the market does not have to be known when planning the processing of the order.

The objective of the CIP4 specification is to flexibly and unrestrictedly standardize communication between the print shop, designers, advertising agency, client of printed matter and subcontractors of contractors in a networked graphic production for all production possibilities and eventualities. The "Job Definition Format"("JDF") and "Job Messaging Format"("JMF") defined as subset of JDF are based on "Extensible Markup Language"("XML"), which is also well known, from the World Wide Web Con- sortium "(" W3C ", www.w3.org) developed metalanguage for defining document types and, according to the intention of the CIP4 consortium, not only in all production areas of a networked printing house, especially in sales, costing and order processing, production planning and control, in the actual production in prepress, printing, postpress and shipping, in the cross-sectional areas of materials and warehousing, finance and payroll accounting, controlling, cost accounting and quality assurance serve as a uniform data format for the description of processes and products.

By vertically integrating data on the one hand of the production process and on the other hand of the commercial areas, JDF should enable a high transparency of all production processes, a standardized documentation of the relevant target and actual data and an integrated production control in a comprehensible and consistent data structure. In particular, an order in JDF should be described only once in a form that is also used in external communication with both end customers and with subcontractors and their implementing systems in human-machine and machine-machine communication via voice and Platform boundaries across all process participants.

Contrary to the philosophy of the CIP4 consortium and the conception of JDF based on it, in the real world of networked printers there are many restrictions and specific differences in the information that the individual process participants need or actually use. Thus, in manual scheduling (that is, without the known management information system), work steps on non-bottleneck cost centers are taken into account in a generally known manner only in the form of minimum time intervals between the respective upstream and downstream operations. A "bottleneck" (also called "bottleneck") is a cost center that affects the performance of the entire production process (here: in a networked graphic production) due to an inadequate capacity - for example limited availability or insufficient processing speed. The concrete use of the relevant non-bottleneck cost center - for example a plate setter - is not taken into account in capacity planning. However, such a reduction of the planning is - meaningfully - not permissible in the CIP4 concepts, since feedback from executing systems that refer to work steps that are not explicitly defined in the planning would not be assignable in a control based on this planning. For example, a JMF feedback message "Plate XYZ exposed for job" of a plate setter can not be assigned if no separate step was defined on this executing system during the planning, in particular no step "Plot plate for job XYZ".

Therefore, according to the CIP4 concepts, each work step (insofar as it either requires a separate input parameter or generates a separately relevant output in the further process) must be explicitly defined - and thus taken into account in the planning as well as in the control of the execution of an order. The unavoidable planning also of (for a CIP4-compatible Management Information System a priori not recognizable as such) non-bottleneck resources not only significantly increases the calculation effort and thus the hardware and software requirements - without economic benefits - the cost compared to the usual manual Planning and control. The visual recording of capacity utilization diagrams is unnecessarily complicated by the - from a business point of view uninteresting - representation of non-bottleneck resources.

task

The invention has for its object to reduce the planning, calculation and presentation effort for non-bottleneck resources without losing essential information for the controller.

solution

Starting from the known method, it is proposed according to the invention that for a non-bottleneck cost center, the work order is a to-do list, that is, no order is defined in the context of the scheduling for the work steps to be performed. According to the known manual planning, which is only reduced to the relevant cost centers, the capacity must be in the disposition according to the method according to the invention of the resource in question. With reference to the non-bottleneck cost center or from the point of view of the order, the method according to the invention realizes quasi a throughput scheduling based on the work steps carried out at a non-bottleneck cost center: With the exception of the work steps executed on non-bottleneck cost centers, the work scheduling for all work steps Start and end times determined.

Under the boundary conditions of the CIP4 concepts, the method according to the invention thus enables a significant reduction of the planning and calculation effort for non-bottleneck cost centers. Apart from the use of the respective cost centers, the capacity-related "hidden" working steps in the method according to the invention are nevertheless sufficiently defined to allow the assignment of returns of these cost centers during the control of the execution without restrictions.

The method according to the invention also makes it possible to evaluate status messages relating to the execution of the work steps for controlling respectively subsequently scheduled work steps with respect to the known method significantly reduced planning, calculation and presentation effort for non-bottleneck resources. According to the method according to the invention, the sequence of the working steps on the non-bottleneck resources is completely mapped in the MIS as the sole prerequisite for such an evaluation of the status messages. Only the capacities assigned to the non-bottleneck resources, whose consideration according to the known method generates planning, calculation and presentation effort without unfolding practically relevant benefits, are not taken into account by the method according to the invention.

Preferably, in the context of a method according to the invention, the probable duration of execution of a work step on a non-bottleneck cost center in the context of scheduling is scheduled as an intermediate time between a precursor logically preceding the work step and a successor logically following the work step.

The definition of "split times" between individual work steps is well known in the context of network planning technology. he / she (the final date of the interim period is behind the start date) is referred to as "rest time", which must be included in the planning of the time schedule, for example, if a product of a work step is not allowed to be processed immediately after it is finished, because it was previously Intervals with negative durations (here the end date of the meantime is before their beginning) are defined in the network planning technique to include a possible overlap (or overlap) in the planning, for example if a continuously produced product of a work step can be processed even before its end date in a subsequent work step.

By adding the duration of a work step on a non-bottleneck cost center in the context of the time scheduling to an intermediate time allocated to the logical relationship between a preceding and a subsequent work step, the method according to the invention considerably simplifies the processing within the scope of the network plan calculation, without data relevant to business administration to neglect. If the step thus "hidden" has several logically preceding and / or subsequent work steps, its duration is added to the intermediate times assigned to all logical relationships between these work steps.

Starting from the known management information system, it is proposed according to the invention that non-bottleneck cost centers can be defined for which the respective work order is a to-do list, that is, contains no specified sequence for the work steps to be performed. The MIS according to the invention makes it possible to carry out the above-described method according to the invention.

embodiment

The invention will be explained below with reference to an embodiment. Show it

Fig. 1 shows a product tree for a job and Fig. 2 shows a network for this order.

A (fictitious) networked offset printer manages, among other things, a prepress system, a platesetter, two printing presses (with the internal designations "R706" and "RA105-8") by means of an MIS according to the invention, a cutting machine ("EMC 115_1 "), a folder (" JCC 78 ") and a saddle stitcher (" SH 10 ") communicating with the MIS via respective CIP4-compatible interfaces.

Among other things, the MIS has a dispatching module in which, inter alia, an order for the production of a printing unit 1 DIN A4 sheet is arranged According to the product tree 2 of the printing unit 1 shown symbolically in simplified form in Figure 1, this has two product parts 3, namely a 4-page cover 4 and a 28-page content 5. The content 5 of the printing unit 1 is made on three folded sheets 6, 7, 8 of 16, eight and four pages.

According to the process structure shown in FIG. 2, symbolically simplified by the process node method in a printing system for the production of the printing unit 1, after execution of the control printout (by the client) in step 10 "Proof three steps 11" CTP "(" Computer to Plate ", FIG. Plate exposure) started. The intermediate times 12 between the step 10 "Proof and the three steps 11" CTP "are set to" 0.00 ", further logical dependencies are not given: all three plates can thus - subject to appropriate capacities - be exposed immediately after the" proof ,

After exposure of the plates, they are immediately available in three steps 13 "print." Since the envelope 4 is to be printed as a 4-page, but the raw sheet in the heavier paper quality to be used is in stock in a larger format, this must be before been cut in one step 14 "cutting".

The content 5 of the printing unit 1 is printed on two signatures - one with the 16-page signatures 6 and another with the 8 and the 4-pageers. The latter is divided in a further step 15 "cutting" in the two signatures 7, 8, all three signatures 6, 7, 8 then each pass through a step 16 - 18 "folding" and are in a joint step 19 "stapling" together with bound to the envelope on the saddle stitcher to the printing unit 1 as an end product.

As an intermediate time 20 between printing and folding the 16-page signatures 6 is for manufacturing reasons, a five-hour rest period, and as intermediate times 21 each before and after the folding of the other two signatures 7, 8 of the contents 5 each one-hour rest period scheduled. A negative interim time 22 between printing and cutting the sheet combined from the 8-page and the 4-page indicates that they are already being placed for cutting one hour before the (planned) finish date of the press.

The cost centers "cutting machine" and "platesetter" are in this offset printing after evaluation of their utilization statistics from the past no bottleneck cost centers. The cost center "Proof is basically not planned in terms of capacity, as it does not bind any capacity, except for the preparation and dispatch of the control printout until it is released by the (external) client. In the MIS disposition module, therefore, only the cost centers "printing press", "folding machine" and "saddle stitcher" are planned in an MPM algorithm for the calculation of the individual start and finish dates for the production of printing unit 1. The "proof, Steps 14, 15 "cutting" and the steps 11 "CTP" scheduled durations are the split times 12, 20 - 22, here in particular as upstream rest times the steps 13 "Print" and the steps 17, 18 "folding" of the 8- and the 4-Seiters slammed after printing.

During the production of the printing unit 1, the connected executive systems according to CIP4 continuously report their status and in particular start and end of execution of a working step 10, 11, 13-19 to the MIS. These messages from the executing systems are assigned to the individual cost centers in the MIS based on the structure defined in the MRP module:

In response to a feedback from the print pre-release system "Proof released by customer", MIS schedules work steps 11 "CTP" for the next free start dates of cost center "Platesetter" and step 14 "Cutting" of the next free start date of cost center "Cutting machine" Crucible for the envelope 4. Based on the calculated final dates and the subsequent split times 12, 20 - 22, the MIS again schedules for the next free start dates of the cost center "Press RA105-8" the pressure of the 16-page of the content 5 and on the Cost center "printing machine R706" the printing of the cover 4 and the printing sheet with the 8-side and the 4-side of the content 5, continue on the cost "Cutting" this step, on the cost center "folding machine" the steps 16 - 18 "folding" and on the cost center "saddle stitcher" the final step 19 "stapling".

On the basis of the further feedback from the executing systems, the MIS continuously monitors the execution of the individual steps 10, 11, 13-19, adjusts the planning of the further execution as far as necessary and, if necessary, reports delays of critical deadlines - in particular the deadline - to the operator of the MIS ,

Figures are printing unit Product tree Product parts Cover Contents Folding sheet "16-page" Folding sheet "8-page" Folding sheet "4-page" Network Work step, JProof Steps "CTP" Split times "Proof - CTP" Steps "Print" Step "Cutting" Step "Cutting "Work step" Folding "Work step" Folding "Work step" Folding "Work step" Stapling "Split time" Print - Fold "Split times Split time" Print - Cut "

Claims

claims

A method for scheduling and controlling orders, wherein operations (10, 11-19) of the orders on cost centers with limited capacities based on logic operations of the steps (10, 11-19), the a temporal order of execution of the steps (10 , 11 - 19), and are scheduled on the cost centers for the expected duration of the execution of the work steps (10, 11-19), whereby, based on the disposition, a representation of a sequence of the execution of the work steps (10, 11 - 19) 19) of the order as well as for each cost center a work order with the respective work steps to be executed (10, 11 - 19) is created, characterized in that for a non-bottleneck cost center the work order is a to-do list, ie in the context of disposition no sequence is specified for the work steps to be performed (10, 11 - 19).

2. Method according to the preceding claim, characterized in that status messages relating to the execution of the working steps (10, 11-19) are evaluated for the control of respectively subsequently scheduled working steps (10, 11-19).

3. The method according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the probable duration of execution of a working step (10, 11 - 19) on a non-bottleneck cost center in the context of disposition as an intermediate time (12, 20 - 22) between a the step ( 10, 11 - 19) preceding the logical predecessor and a step (10, 11 - 19) logically succeeding successor is scheduled.

4. Management information system for the disposition and control of orders for the production of printing units (1) in a networked graphic production with a disposition module, by means of which work steps (10, 11-19) of the orders can be allocated to cost centers with limited capacities, one for each order Representation of a sequence of execution of the work steps (10, 11-19) of the job and for each cost center a work order with the respectively to be executed steps (10, 11-19) can be created, and with a control module, by means of which the execution of the steps ( 10, 11 - 19), characterized in that non-bottleneck cost centers are definable for which the respective work order is a to-do list, that is to say for the work steps to be executed (10, 11-19) no specified sequence is contained.