JP2015022684A - Printing system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a printing system capable of managing a past record and progress corresponding to gang-up job processing of Prepress by a conventional MIS (management information system) without changing the MIS.SOLUTION: An MIS supplies Prepress with a Job1 and a Job2 (100 and 101), and then PrePress combines the jobs together into a Job3 (102) and transmits the Job 3 to Press (103). Then, the MIS asks the Press about information associated with the Job1 (104). Processing (105 and 106) is reiterated until the corresponding information (Job1) is acquired. Then, the Press transmits, as a response, the information of the Job3 owned by itself to the MIS as the information of the Job1.

Description

  The present invention relates to a printing system for managing print job processing result information.

  In the commercial printing industry, which receives a print request from a third party (customer, client) and creates a print product, collects print processing result information in order to manage the cost of the received print job (Patent Document 1). reference).

  The printer employs a MIS (Management Information System) and a Press system for job management and job generation. The MIS sends order information to the Prepress system, and the Prepress system generates content data and device control parameters and sends them to the printing apparatus and the post-processing apparatus.

  The MIS collects job progress information and processing performance information from the printing apparatus and the post-processing apparatus.

Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2004-102809

  Gangup is not necessarily agreed upon between the MIS, the printing apparatus, and the post-processing apparatus and synthesized as a job.

  When gang-up processing is performed in the Prepress system and a plurality of jobs are combined into one, the MIS cannot know that the order receiving job has been combined. Further, the printing apparatus and the post-processing apparatus cannot know that the received job is due to gangup. As a result, there is a problem that even if the MIS tries to collect performance information from the printing apparatus and the post-processing apparatus, the corresponding job cannot be found.

In a printing system that combines a plurality of print images obtained from a plurality of jobs into a single print job and obtains the result of the original plurality of jobs by cutting the print result of the print job.
Job generation means for generating a plurality of composition source jobs,
Job combining means for combining the plurality of combining source jobs into one combined job;
Job processing means for processing the post-combination job;
Job information inquiry means for inquiring job information from the job processing means;
Job composition information inquiry means for inquiring information about job composition from the job composition means by the job generation means;
Job composition information return means for returning information on the composition of the job to the job generation means in response to the job composition inquiry means;
Is provided.

  According to the present invention, the MIS can perform performance / progress management corresponding to the prepress Gang job processing without modifying the conventional printing apparatus or post-processing apparatus.

Block diagram showing an example of system configuration Gangup composite job example Job submission and information query sequence example Example of job correspondence table held by Prepress Example of job management table held by Press Example of job correspondence table held by MIS Flow chart of job generation in Prepress Flowchart corresponding to inquiry from MIS in Prepress Flow chart at the time of job transmission in MIS Flowchart corresponding to the inquiry to Press in MIS

  The best mode for carrying out the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

  FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a printing system according to the present invention.

  In the present embodiment, the MIS (1) transmits printing and bookbinding jobs to the press (2) according to the order information. Further, Prepress (2) creates more detailed job data and content data according to the received job from MIS (1), and transmits them to Press (3) and Postpress (4). The Press (3) forms an image in the print control unit (30), and the job management unit (31) processes the job received from the Press (2).

  When the job sent from Prepress (2) includes the cutting process, the print output (5) in the Press is processed as the input of Postpress (4). Postpress (4) performs cutting control by the control unit (40), and the job management unit (41) processes the job received from Prepress (2). In addition, the MIS (1) performs cost management of the printing system by inquiring of the job progress status or performance information to the Press (3) and Postpress (4).

  In the figure, (1) to (4) are connected by a communication line such as Ethernet (registered trademark) and configured to exchange data.

  FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of a gang-up composition job in the present embodiment. In the figure, it is shown that the submitted content data of two jobs whose job identifiers (JobID) are Job1 and Job2 are combined page by page, and a new job whose job identifier is Job3 is generated. This job is further cut together by the cutting job for Job3, and the original Job1 and Job2 print results can be obtained.

  FIG. 3 is a sequence diagram showing an example when the MIS inquires about the information of the gang-up job synthesized by the Prepress corresponding to the example of FIG.

  After MIS (1) submits Job1 and Job2 jobs to Prepress (2) (100, 101), Prepress (2) combines them into Job3 (102) and sends them to Press (3) (103) . The MIS then inquires the Prepress (2) first to inquire the Press (3) for information on Job1 (104). Prepress (2) returns that Job1 corresponds to Job3 (105). The MIS (1) stores the relationship between Job1 and Job3 (106).

  Next, MIS (1) inquires of Press (3) about Job3 information (107). Press (3) returns Job3 information to MIS (1) (108). The MIS (1) processes the acquired Job3 information as Job1 information. The MIS (1) similarly inquires about information about the job to the Postpress (4), but the Postpress (4) also performs the same processing as the Press (3). FIG. 4, FIG. 5 and FIG. 6 show examples of information exchanged by MIS, Prepress, Press, and Postpress.

  FIG. 4 is an example of a job correspondence table that Prepress (2) holds in the job storage unit (25). “Reception job identifier” is an identifier of a job received from the MIS. “Transmission destination” is a corresponding transmission destination. “Transmission job identifier” is an identifier of a job transmitted to Press or Postpress. “In the case of a gang-up composition job, a plurality of different“ reception job identifiers ”correspond to the same transmission job identifier.

  FIG. 5 is a job management table that the Press (3) holds in the job storage unit (33). This table holds job information corresponding to an inquiry from the MIS. The “job identifier” is a job identifier when a job is received from Prepress. “Status” indicates the current job status corresponding to the job identifier. “Number of actual copies” indicates the number of output copies corresponding to the job identifier. “Number of actual pages” indicates the number of output pages corresponding to the job identifier.

  FIG. 6 is a job correspondence table stored in the job storage unit (14) by the MIS (1). FIG. 6 further shows changes before and after the inquiry to Prepress (2). The “inquiry job identifier” is an identifier of a job whose information is to be acquired from Press (3). The “corresponding job identifier” is a job identifier that actually makes an inquiry to Press (3). Unless it is a composite job, the inquiry job identifier and the corresponding job identifier usually match. “Checked” is a flag indicating whether or not the prepress has been inquired regarding the job identifier.

  In the state before the Press inquiry shown in FIG. 6, there is no information regarding Job1 and Job2. After inquiring Prepress, when inquiring about Job1 to Press (3), it will be understood that it is sufficient to inquire with Job3.

  FIG. 7 is a flowchart of processing in which Prepress combines jobs for gang-up. When a job is received from the MIS, it is determined whether or not to combine (S1001). When combining (S1007 to S1012), after combining the jobs, the correspondence between the combined job and the combining source job is recorded in the job correspondence table shown in the example of FIG. If not combined, the job is temporarily held for combining with the next job (S1003), or the job is generated as it is and recorded in the job correspondence table (S1004 to S1005).

  FIG. 8 is a flowchart of processing when Prepress (2) receives a job correspondence inquiry from MIS (1). The job correspondence calculation unit (26) sequentially checks the job correspondence table shown in the example of FIG. 4 (S1101, S1102, S1103, S1106). Then, the job correspondence calculation unit (26) finds a line in which the combination of the received job identifier and the transmission destination matches the inquired job identifier and the MIS information acquisition destination, and transmits the transmission job as a combined job identifier. An identifier is specified (S1104). The data transmitting / receiving unit (24) returns the identified transmission job identifier (S1105). On the other hand, if no corresponding job is found from the job correspondence table, an error is returned (S1107).

  FIG. 9 is a flowchart of processing in which the MIS (1) that has transmitted the job to the Prepress (2) records the information of the job identifier. The job storage unit (14) updates the job correspondence table illustrated in FIG. 6 according to the contents of the job (S1201) transmitted from the data transmission / reception unit (13) to the press (S1202).

  FIG. 10 is a flowchart of processing when the MIS issues a job inquiry to the Press. The job correspondence calculation unit (15) checks whether the job with the job identifier whose information is to be acquired has been checked in the job management table shown in the example of FIG. 5 (S1301). If it is already checked, information is acquired from the Press with the corresponding transmission job identifier (S1305 to S1306). If unchecked, the corresponding job is inquired of Prepress (2) (S1302). Then, the correspondence job is acquired and the correspondence table is updated (S1303, S1304). According to the updated information, the job inquiry unit (11) of the MIS acquires information from the press (S1306).

  This completes the processing corresponding to the inquiry about information relating to the gang-up composition job. As for Postpress, an inquiry is made from the MIS by the same process. In the present embodiment, a single press and postpress are described, but a plurality of presses and postpresses may be connected.

1 MIS
2 Prepress
3 Press

Claims (1)

In a printing system that combines a plurality of print images obtained from a plurality of jobs into a single print job and obtains the result of the original plurality of jobs by cutting the print result of the print job.
Job generation means for generating a plurality of composition source jobs,
Job combining means for combining the plurality of combining source jobs into one combined job;
Job processing means for processing the combined job),
Job information inquiry means for inquiring job information from the job processing means;
Job composition information inquiry means for inquiring information about job composition from the job composition means by the job generation means;
Job composition information return means for returning information on the composition of the job to the job generation means in response to the job composition inquiry means;
A printing system comprising: