JP2020181500A - Production management device, production management system, production management method, and program - Google Patents

Abstract

To reduce a risk of re-production from printing due to a failure while suppressing excessive production of products.SOLUTION: A production management system has: first acquisition means for acquiring order information; second acquisition means for acquiring the number of failures during production of products produced based on the order information; storage means for storing, as performance data, the order information acquired by the first acquisition means and the number of failures acquired by the second acquisition means in association with each other; derivation means for deriving a failure rate in the production of products based on the performance data stored in the storage means; and determination means for determining, based on the failure rate derived by the derivation means and the number of produced products specified by the order information, the number of spare pieces upon the production of products for the new order information.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 4

Description

The present invention relates to a production control device, a production control system, a production control method, and a program.

At the commercial printing site, production and production management of printing products are performed according to customer orders. At the site of commercial printing, there are roughly the following three tasks. The first task is the prepress (pre-printing) process of imposing the submitted manuscript data in a specified format. The next task is a press (printing) process for printing prepressed print data. The next work is a post-press (post-processing) process that performs folding, bookbinding, cutting, and the like on the printed paper. Then, during and at the end of these operations, inspections are performed to confirm the quality of the deliverables.

During the production work of print products, defects (failures) may occur in the printing process and post-processing process. If a defect (occurrence) occurs in the post-processing process, it is necessary to start over from the printing process. Since it takes time and effort to start over from printing, it is possible to avoid redoing by creating an extra copy in advance for the number of copies ordered. For example, in Patent Document 1, a process of automatically determining a predetermined number of spare copies is performed according to the number of ordered copies.

Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 10-187382

However, it is difficult for even a person who has knowledge and experience in the printing field to set an appropriate number of spare copies in advance. In addition, it is difficult to find an appropriate opportunity to review even if the number of spare copies is inappropriate and to calculate an appropriate number.

Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to reduce the risk of re-production from printing due to failure while suppressing excessive production of the deliverable.

The present invention has the following configurations in order to solve the above problems. That is, in the production management system, a first acquisition means for acquiring order information, a second acquisition means for acquiring the number of failures during production of a product produced based on the order information, and the first acquisition means. A storage means that stores the order information acquired by the acquisition means 1 and the number of failures acquired by the second acquisition means as actual data, and the actual data stored by the storage means. Based on the derivation means for deriving the failure rate in the production of the deliverable, the failure rate derived by the derivation means, and the production number of the deliverable specified in the new order information. It has a deciding means for determining the number of spare copies when producing a deliverable for order information.

INDUSTRIAL APPLICABILITY According to the present invention, it is possible to reduce the risk of reprinting from printing due to failure while suppressing excessive production of the deliverable.

The figure which shows the configuration example of the whole system which concerns on one Embodiment of this invention. The figure which shows the example of the hardware composition of the information processing apparatus which concerns on one Embodiment of this invention. The figure which shows the example of the module structure of the production control apparatus which concerns on one Embodiment of this invention. The flowchart of the process which concerns on one Embodiment of this invention. The figure which shows the example of the display screen which concerns on one Embodiment of this invention. The figure which shows the example of the inspection screen which concerns on one Embodiment of this invention. The figure which shows the example of the display screen which concerns on one Embodiment of this invention. The figure which shows the example of the display screen which concerns on 2nd Embodiment. The figure which shows the example of the inspection screen which concerns on 3rd Embodiment. The figure which shows the example of the module structure of the production control apparatus which concerns on 4th Embodiment. The figure which shows the example of the display screen which concerns on 4th Embodiment. The figure which shows the composition example of the performance data for each process which concerns on 4th Embodiment.

Hereinafter, embodiments will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. The following embodiments do not limit the invention according to the claims. Although a plurality of features are described in the embodiment, not all of the plurality of features are essential to the invention, and the plurality of features may be arbitrarily combined. Further, in the attached drawings, the same or similar configurations are designated by the same reference numbers, and duplicate description is omitted.

<First Embodiment>
[System configuration]
FIG. 1 is an overall configuration diagram showing an example of a system configuration according to the present embodiment. The outline of the production control system will be described below with reference to FIG. It is assumed that each device constituting the production control system according to the present embodiment is separately installed in the order / print preprocessing room and the printing room. The order / print preprocessing room and the printing room are arranged for convenience according to the role of each device, and are not limited to this.

An order receiving device 101 and a prepress device 102 are installed in the order receiving / printing preprocessing room. The order receiving device 101 receives an order from a customer. There are various types of orders received from customers, such as a Web system (not shown), e-mail, telephone, and storefront, but the order is not particularly limited. The order receiving device 101 centrally manages these orders. The prepress device 102 performs processing such as imposition on the submitted data from the customer based on the order contents, and processes the data into print data.

A production control device 100, a printing device 103, a post-processing device 104, and an inspection control device 105 are installed in the printing room. The production management device 100 receives an order for production from the order receiving device 101. The production control device 100 generates a job based on the production control information (details will be described later) for the received order, and transmits the job to the printing device 103 and the post-processing device 104. At that time, the print data is also transmitted to the printing device 103.

The printing device 103 is a device that performs a printing operation, receives a print job and print data, and prints based on the print job. The post-processing device 104 is an apparatus that performs post-processing such as folding, cutting, and bookbinding, and receives a post-processing job and performs post-processing based on the post-processing job. The inspection management device 105 is a device for inputting the inspection result at the time of inspection. The order / print preprocessing room and the devices installed in the printing room are connected to each other by a network 106. Although each device is shown in FIG. 1, more devices may be provided. For example, a plurality of printing devices 103 and a plurality of post-processing devices 104 may be provided according to the printing function and the post-processing function corresponding to various order contents.

[Hardware configuration]
FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of a hardware configuration of an information processing device that can operate as the production management device 100 according to the present embodiment. In FIG. 2, the CPU (Central Processing Unit) 201 controls each device connected to the CPU device based on a control program stored in the ROM (Read Only Memory) 202 or the storage device 203. The ROM 202 is a non-volatile storage area and holds various control programs and data. The RAM (Random Access Memory) 204 is a volatile storage area, and includes a work area of the CPU 201, a data save area at the time of error processing, a control program load area, and the like. The storage device 203 stores various control programs and various data. The network interface (NW-IF) 205 communicates with other information devices and the like via the network 206. The communication method here may be wired or wireless.

The control program for the CPU 201 may be provided from the ROM 202 or the storage device 203, or may be provided from another information device or the like via the network 206. The input IF 208 is an interface with a device for inputting data to the device. The output IF 207 is an interface for outputting various data. The input IF 208 is connected to an input device such as a keyboard 211 and a mouse 212. The output IF 207 is connected to an output device such as a monitor 210. The CPU bus 209 includes an address bus, a data bus, and a control bus. The CPU bus 209 is connected to an input IF208, an output IF207, an NW-IF205, a CPU201, a ROM202, a RAM204, and a storage device 203. In the present embodiment, the information processing program code including the content of the present invention is stored in the storage device 203, and the data input from the keyboard 211 and the mouse 212 executed by the CPU 201 is held in the RAM 204 via the input IF 208. To. The CPU 201 recognizes and analyzes the contents of the data held in the RAM 204 based on the control program. The analyzed result is output to another device via the RAM 204, the storage device 203, the monitor 210, the NW-IF205, and the network 206, if necessary.

The order receiving device 101, the prepress device 102, and the inspection management device 105 according to the present embodiment may also have the same configuration as the information processing device shown in FIG. Further, the configuration of the printing device 103 and the post-processing device 104 is provided with various functions capable of outputting the deliverables of the order received by the order receiving device 101.

[Module configuration]
FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of a module configuration of the production control device 100 according to the present embodiment. The production management device 100 includes an order reception unit 301, an order storage unit 302, a production record reception unit 303, a production record storage unit 304, a job creation storage unit 305, a production information storage unit 306, a spare number calculation unit 307, and a display unit 308. And the communication unit 309 are included. The order receiving unit 301 receives the order information held by the order receiving device 101 via the communication unit 309. The order receiving unit 301 further receives the print data obtained by imposition or the like on the submitted data from the customer by the prepress device 102 based on the order contents. The order storage unit 302 stores the order information and print data received by the order reception unit 301. The print data corresponding to the order information is associated and stored.

In the present embodiment, the production record reception unit 303 receives the record of inspection performed by the inspection management device 105, that is, the number of failures during production. The production record storage unit 304 stores the production record received by the production record reception unit 303. The job creation storage unit 305 creates and stores a job based on the production process table (described later) of the production information of the production information storage unit 306 with respect to the order information stored in the order storage unit 302. The production information storage unit 306 holds a production process table and a spare number table of production information. The spare number calculation unit 307 calculates the spare number based on the spare number table of the production information or the production record. The display unit 308 displays order information and job information. The display unit 308 receives instructions for accepting orders, sending jobs, placing orders, or deleting jobs. The communication unit 309 transmits / receives data to / from the order receiving device 101, the prepress device 102, the printing device 103, the post-processing device 104, and the inspection management device 105.

[Processing flow]
FIG. 4 shows a flowchart of the process according to the present embodiment. FIG. 4A shows a flow of processing for obtaining the production number from the calculation of the spare number. FIG. 4B shows a flow of processing for creating actual data from the number of failures input at the time of inspection. The process of FIG. 4A is realized by the CPU 201 of the production management device 100 reading and executing various programs stored in the storage device 203 or the like. Further, the process of FIG. 4B is realized by the CPU 201 of each of the production management device 100 and the inspection management device 105 reading and executing various programs stored in the storage device 203 or the like.

(Production number calculation process)
First, the production number calculation process will be described with reference to FIG. 4A. Here, a specific order will be described as an example. The display unit 308 of the production control device 100 displays the order list / production instruction screen 500 as shown in FIG. 5A. At the time of initial display, each item from the order ID of the order list 502 to the number of pages of the text is not displayed. When the order acceptance button 501 on the order list / production instruction screen 500 is pressed, the processing flow shown in FIG. 4A starts.

In S401, the order receiving unit 301 inquires about the order information from the order receiving device 101, and receives the order information to be produced. As the first process, as shown in FIG. 5A, the case where the order information of the order ID “OR901010”, the product ID “TCDA4”, and the number of orders “70” is received will be described. The order receiving unit 301 requests the prepress device 102 to print data of the order to be produced, and receives the print data. Then, the order receiving unit 301 reads the received order information one by one.

In S402, the order receiving unit 301 determines whether or not the order information to be read exists. If all the order information is processed and there is no order information to be read (NO in S402), the process proceeds to S403. If the order information to be read exists, the process proceeds to S404 (YES in S402). In the case of the example shown in FIG. 5A, since there is one order information to be read, the process proceeds to S404.

In S404, the order receiving unit 301 instructs the job creation storage unit 305 to create a job. The job creation storage unit 305 creates a job corresponding to the product ID of the order information from the production process table of the production information of the production information storage unit 306. Table 1 is an example of a production process table of production information of the production information storage unit 306 according to the present embodiment.

When the product ID of the order information is "TCDA4", two processes (printing and cutting) in which "TCDA4" is associated with the product ID of the production process table of the production information are created as jobs. The IDs of these steps are "0001" and "0002". The order receiving unit 301 instructs the spare number calculation unit 307 to calculate the spare number in the processing after S405.

In S405, the spare number calculation unit 307 determines whether or not the actual data of the product (“TCDA4”) is sufficiently accumulated. If the accumulation of actual data is not sufficient (NO in S405), the process proceeds to S406, and if the accumulation of actual data is sufficient (YES in S405), the process proceeds to S407. Whether or not it is sufficient here may be determined, for example, by holding a predetermined threshold value defined in advance and comparing this threshold value with the number of actual data. The accumulation of actual data is sufficient when the number is equal to or greater than the number indicated by the predetermined threshold value. At the time of receiving the order ID "OR901010" which is the first process, the actual data of the product does not exist. Therefore, the process proceeds to S406.

In S406, the spare number calculation unit 307 acquires the spare number from the spare number table of the production information of the production information storage unit 306. Table 2 is an example of a spare number table of production information according to this embodiment.

In the case of the example shown in Table 2, the product ID "TDCA4" accepts orders from 50 pieces. The product ID "TDCA4" in the spare number table of the production information of the production information storage unit 306 has a spare number of "10" when the number of orders is 50 to 100. Similarly, when the number of orders is 101 to 200, the spare number is "20", when the number of orders is 201 to 300, the spare number is "30", and when the number of orders is 301 or more, the spare number is "40". That is, in Table 2, the value set as the number of spare copies is specified. Since the order number of the order ID "OR901010" is "70", the number of orders in the spare number table corresponds to the range of 50 to 100, and the spare number is "10". After that, the process proceeds to S409.

In S409, the order receiving unit 301 determines the production number "80" by adding the calculated spare number "10" to the order number "70" and sets it as the number of prints. After that, it returns to S401 and reads the next order information. Here, since there is only one order information of the order ID "OR901010", no further order information is read in S401. Therefore, it becomes NO in S402 and proceeds to S403.

In S403, the order receiving unit 301 instructs the display unit 308 to display a list of order information for which a spare number is set, and displays the order list 502 of the order list / production instruction screen 500 of FIG. 5 (a). .. As shown in FIG. 5A, in the order list 502, the order number, the spare number, and the production number are shown as "70", "10", and "80", respectively. The above is the flow of calculating the spare number and displaying the order list when the cumulative results are not sufficient.

When the "to job list" button 503 is pressed while the display unit 308 is displaying the order list / production instruction screen 500 shown in FIG. 5A, the display unit 308 displays the job list / production instruction screen 510 shown in FIG. 5B. indicate. In the job list 511, the job created by the job creation storage unit 305, the spare number calculated by the spare number calculation unit 307, and the production number obtained by adding the spare number to the order number are displayed. In the print job, the number of prints is "40". This is the number of sheets to be printed obtained by dividing the production number "80" by the number of faces "2" held in the production process table of the production information. When the "Go to order list" button 512 is pressed on the job list / production instruction screen 510, the process returns to the order list / production instruction screen 500.

When the send buttons 504 and 513 are pressed while the display unit 308 is displaying the order list / production instruction screen 500 or the job list / production instruction screen 510, the display unit 308 requests the communication unit 309 to display the device in the list. Send a job to it. In the job transmission, the print data is simultaneously transmitted to the printing device 103, or the existence position (storage location) of the print data is notified. In job transmission, in addition to order information, information on the production process table of production information may be transmitted as a job ticket.

In the order ID "OR901010", the job for the printing process is transmitted to the "printer B" and the job for the cutting process is transmitted to the "cutting machine E" based on the production process table shown in Table 1. Upon receiving the job transmission, the printer B prints the corresponding print data. Next, the printed intermediate product is cut by the cutting machine E. As described above, when the production of the order ID "OR901010" is completed, the inspection is performed. When the inspection is completed, the user inputs the number of failures via the inspection screen 600 shown in FIG. The inspection screen 600 shown in FIG. 6 is a screen displayed by the inspection management device 105.

(Actual data creation process)
Subsequently, the actual data generation process will be described with reference to FIG. 4 (b). This process is started when the user inspects the deliverable and then gives an instruction to input the inspection result by the inspection management device 105.

In S431, the inspection management device 105 inquires the production management device 100 for order information when the ID of the inspected order is input to the order ID 601 of the inspection screen 600 and the "search" button 602 is pressed.

In S432, the production record receiving unit 303 of the production management device 100 searches the production record storage unit 304 for the order information of the corresponding order ID in response to the inquiry from the inspection management device 105.

In S433, the production record reception unit 303 determines whether or not the order information of the corresponding order ID exists in the production record storage unit 304. If the order information exists (YES in S433), the process proceeds to S434, and if the order information does not exist (NO in S433), the process proceeds to S438.

In S438, the production record reception unit 303 transmits to the inspection management device 105 that the order information does not exist.

In S439, the inspection management device 105 displays that the order information of the order ID input to the inspection screen 600 does not exist based on the search result received from the production management device 100. Then, this processing flow is terminated. After this step, the inspection management device 105 may accept the designation of further search for order information on the inspection screen 600.

In S434, the production record reception unit 303 transmits information on the number of orders, the number of spares, and the number of production of the existing order information to the inspection management device 105.

In S435, the inspection management device 105 receives the order information returned from the production management device 100, and displays the order number, the spare number, and the production number on the inspection screen 600. FIG. 6 shows an example in which the order quantity, the spare quantity, and the production quantity are displayed as “70”, “10”, and “80”, respectively.

In S436, the inspection management device 105 inputs the number of failures in the entry 603 of the inspection screen 600, and when the "OK" button 604 is pressed, the inspection management device 105 transmits the number of failures for the order information to the production management device 100.

In S437, the production record reception unit 303 of the production control device 100 receives the number of failures transmitted from the inspection management device 105 and accepts it as a record. The received results are stored in the production record storage unit 304 of the production management device 100. Table 3 shows an example of the production record data stored in the production record storage unit 304 according to the present embodiment.

Table 3 shows the actual results of the order ID "OR901010" and the same product ID "TCDA4" as the order ID "OR901010" generated thereafter. In Table 3, the number of failures ÷ the number of production × 100 is displayed as the failure rate (%) for each order.

In the above, the method of calculating the spare number in the situation where the order ID "OR901010" is used as the first order and there is no actual result has been described above. Next, a method of calculating the reserve number from the failure rate based on the actual results will be described when it can be determined that sufficient data has been accumulated by accumulating the 10 actual results shown in Table 3. It should be noted that the judgment that the cumulative number of achievements is sufficient does not mean that the number of achievements is 10 or more.

A new order (order ID "OR901110") will be described as an example. The order ID "OR901110" is an order with the product ID "TCDA4" and the number of orders "240". The flow of processing under this condition will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. 4A. Since the explanation up to S405 is the same as the explanation in the order ID "OR901010" which is the first order, it is omitted.

In S405, the spare number calculation unit 307 determines whether or not the actual data of the product (“TCDA4”) is sufficiently accumulated. At the time of the order ID "OR901110" this time, since there are 10 actual results shown in Table 3, it is determined that the actual data is sufficiently accumulated (YES in S405), and the process proceeds to S407.

In S407, the spare number calculation unit 307 calculates the failure rate using the actual data in Table 3. In the case of the example shown in Table 3, the simple average value of the failure rate of each order in the 10 actual cases is 9.68%. The median failure rate for each order is 9.41%. The failure rate of the total number calculated by summing the number of failures and the number of production of each order and calculating the total number of failures ÷ the total number of production × 100 is 9.31%. In the present embodiment, in order to reduce the possibility that the number of shortages will occur, 9.68%, which is the highest value (highest value) of the failure rate obtained above, is adopted as the failure rate. The method of calculating the failure rate using the actual data is not limited to the above, and the failure rate to be used may be derived by another method.

In S408, the spare number calculation unit 307 calculates the spare number by multiplying the order number "240" of the order ID "OR901110" by the failure rate adopted above and rounding up to the nearest whole number. That is, the reserve number is calculated by the following formula.
As a result of the round-up calculation after the decimal point of the spare number = 240 × 0.0968, the spare number is “24”.

After that, in S409, when the order receiving unit 301 obtains the production number as in the case of the order ID "OR901010", the production number = 240 + 24 = 264. Further, in S403, the order receiving unit 301 instructs the display unit 308 to display a list of order information for which a spare number is set, and the order list 701 of the order list / production instruction screen 700 shown in FIG. 7A. Is displayed. In the order list 701, the spare quantity is shown as "24". As described above, when the spare number table is used without using the actual data, the spare number is "30". Therefore, in the result using the actual data of this example, the spare number is reduced by "6". The number of production will be suppressed.

As described above, in the present embodiment, the failure rate is calculated based on the actual result of inputting the number of failures, the spare number is obtained, and the production number is calculated from the preliminary number. As described above, it is possible to calculate a more appropriate spare number for the spare number table that is set excessively compared to the number that actually fails. As a result, it is possible to reduce the risk of reprinting from printing due to failure while suppressing excessive production of deliverables.

In the present embodiment, the failure rate is obtained from all the actual production data, but the present invention is not limited to this. If production performance data is accumulated over many years, past performance that is too old may not match the latest situation. In such a case, for example, the configuration may be such that the actual data of the target for which the failure rate is to be obtained is narrowed down according to the latest period or the number of cases. In addition, the failure rate may increase due to aged deterioration of the device, or the failure rate may decrease due to the improvement of the skill level of the worker. A mathematical method (such as the least squares method) may be applied to such time series trend estimation to estimate the future failure rate.

<Second embodiment>
In the first embodiment, the failure rate adopted the highest value among the simple average, the total average, and the median. However, it is not limited to this. As a second embodiment of the present invention, a method of setting a failure rate by designating a risk (probability) of occurrence of reproduction in which the number of failures exceeds the preliminary number and reproduction is restarted from printing will be described. The configuration that overlaps with the first embodiment will be omitted, and only the differences will be described.

FIG. 8A is a diagram showing a configuration example of the order list / production instruction screen 800 according to the present embodiment. On the order list / production instruction screen 800, the "preliminary number reproduction risk rate designation" button 801 is provided. When the "specify spare number reproduction risk rate" button 801 is pressed, the display unit 308 displays the spare number reproduction risk rate designation screen 810 shown in FIG. 8B. On the spare number reproduction risk rate specification screen 810, the entry 811 accepts the specification of what percentage or less the risk rate for reproduction is to be. Here, if the risk rate of reproduction is specified as "0"% in entry 811, it means that reproduction is not performed based on all the failure rates of the actual data shown in Table 3. That is, in order to realize production in which the risk rate of reproduction is 0%, the failure rate of 11.43% of the order ID "OR901020", which is the highest among the failure rates shown in Table 3, is adopted. On the order list / production instruction screen 800, the spare number of the order ID "OR901110" is "28". This is the result of adopting 11.43% as the failure rate to set the risk rate of reproduction to 0%. As described above, in the first embodiment, the spare number of the order ID "OR901110" is "24", so that the spare number is increasing.

For the actual data shown in Table 3, when the risk rate for reproduction is specified as 10%, 11.25% is adopted as the failure rate. Similarly, when the risk rate is specified as 20%, 10.59% is adopted as the failure rate. The risk rate of reproduction of 10% means that reproduction is allowed to occur once in 10 times. That is, the specification of the permissible value for the occurrence rate of reproduction is accepted. In the present embodiment, when the risk rate is set high, the number of spare copies is controlled to be small, and when the risk rate is set low, the number of spare copies is controlled to be large in order to prevent reproduction from occurring.

When any order information is selected on the order list / production instruction screen 800 and the "specify spare quantity reproduction risk rate" button 801 is pressed, reproduction is performed only for the generation process for the selected order status. The risk rate is applied. On the other hand, if the "preliminary number reproduction risk rate specification" button 801 is pressed without selecting the order information on the order list / production instruction screen 800, the risk rate of reproduction is applied to all the order information. Will be done.

As described above, according to the present embodiment, in addition to the effect of the first embodiment, it is possible to more flexibly calculate the spare number by designating the permissible risk rate of reproduction for the order.

<Third embodiment>
In the first embodiment, the production of the deliverable is completed, and after the inspection, the user records the number of failures in the order unit on the inspection screen 600 shown in FIG. As a third embodiment of the present invention, a mode of recording the number of failures for each order / process will be described.

The explanation will be given by taking the order ID "OR901010" as an example. FIG. 7B shows a configuration example of the job list / production instruction screen 710 according to the present embodiment, and the “job list” button 702 of the order list / production instruction screen 700 shown in FIG. 7A is pressed. Is displayed by.

As described in the first embodiment, the product ID "TCDA4" of the order ID "OR901010" has two production processes, printing and cutting, and the process is displayed in the job list 711. FIG. 9 shows a configuration example of the inspection screen (by process) 900 according to the present embodiment, and is provided with a column 901 in which the number of failures can be input for each process. As shown in the job list 711, the product ID "TCDA4" of the order ID "OR901010" has two steps of printing and cutting. Also in the column 901 of the inspection screen (by process) 900 shown in FIG. 9, the number of failures can be input for the two processes. By making it possible to record the number of failures for each process, it is possible to confirm in which process a defect occurred. For example, stains on the printed surface are caused by the printing process, and if the cutting is poor, the cutting process is the cause.

In the inspection screen (by process) 900 shown in FIG. 9, "8" is input in the printing process and "12" is input in the cutting process as the failure of the order ID "OR901010". The input actual value is transmitted to the production actual reception unit 303 of the production management device 100. Further, the actual value received by the production management device 100 is stored in the production actual storage unit 304. Table 4 is an example of the stored production record data for each process.

By inputting the number of failures for each process, it becomes possible to obtain the failure rate for each process. By summing the number of failures for each process, it is possible to obtain the failure rate for each order / product as shown in the first embodiment. By calculating the number of production, the number of failures, and the failure rate for each process, the following processing can be performed.

For example, the cutting process of "A4 color double-sided leaflet" and "A4 monochrome double-sided leaflet" is a process of performing exactly the same work. Therefore, it is possible to use the process of performing the same work when accumulating the actual data as the same process. This makes it possible to improve the accuracy when the number of achievements is small. Similarly, since the printing process of the color A3 size of the "A3 color double-sided leaflet" and the printing process of the color A3 size of the "A4 color double-sided leaflet" are the same process, they can be used as the same process.

As described above, according to the present embodiment, in addition to the effect of the first embodiment, by managing the actual data for each process, more useful actual data can be used.

<Fourth Embodiment>
A fourth embodiment of the present invention will be described. The part that overlaps with the above embodiment will be omitted, and only the difference will be described. FIG. 10 shows an example of the module configuration of the production control device 100 according to the present embodiment. The production plan creation storage unit 1001 is added as a difference from the module configuration shown in FIG. The production plan creation storage unit 1001 creates a production plan for the order information and stores the created result.

The production plan according to this embodiment is created by using various masters for the production plan described below. Table 5 shows an example of a production planning master (manufacturing process). In the production planning master (manufacturing process), one or more manufacturing processes are defined for one product ID. Table 5 shows that there are four manufacturing processes of the product ID "TCDA4", "P1_TCDA4", "P2_TCDA4", "P3_TCDA4", and "P4_TCDA4".

Table 6 shows an example of a production planning master (planning process), and the planning process constituting the manufacturing process defined in Table 5 is defined. The production planning master (planning process) is uniquely specified by the composite key of the manufacturing process and the planning process ID. In Table 6, for example, "P1_TCDA4" defines three processes of printing, cutting, and inspection as planned processes. In the production process table of the production information shown in Table 1, there are two processes, printing and cutting, with the same product ID "TCDA4". This is because the target for creating and transmitting a job is only the above two steps. On the other hand, in the production plan creation, since the plan is created including the inspection, the three processes of printing, cutting, and inspection are defined as shown in Table 6.

Further, in Table 6, as the attribute values of the process, the number of units required for creating the production plan, the reference time, and the pre-planning process ID are included. The number of units indicates a number that serves as a unit for calculating the working time with respect to the number of production or the number of prints in the process. For example, when the number of units is "1", the number of production or the number of prints is the number for calculating the working time as it is. That is, the working time is calculated by (the number of production or the number of prints) x (reference time). When the number of units is "40", the work is performed in 40 units, so the working time is calculated by the number of production ÷ the number of units (40) × the reference time.

The reference time is a reference time for calculating the working time in the planning process. The pre-planning process ID contains a planning process ID that should have been completed before the planned process is carried out. The pre-planning process ID may have no value as in the printing process, or may contain a plurality of values meaning that the process needs to be performed after the plurality of processes are completed.

Table 7 shows an example of a production planning master (process resource), and resources (groups) used by the planning process defined in Table 6 are defined. Resources (groups) can be designated as groups as described in Table 8. It is possible to specify a plurality of resources (groups) for one planning process. When multiple resources (groups) are specified for one planning process, it is necessary to create a plan in a time zone in which all the specified resources (groups) can be allocated (reserved) in the same time zone. It means that there is.

Table 8 shows the production planning master (resource group). The devices and workers that can actually use the resource groups specified in Table 7 are defined.

Next, the creation of a production plan using the various masters for the above production plan will be described. FIG. 11A shows a configuration example of the order list / production instruction screen 1100 according to the present embodiment. The order list / production instruction screen 1100 displays the same order ID “OR901110” as in FIG. 7A described in the first embodiment. The order list / production instruction screen 1100 shown in FIG. 11A is different from the configuration shown in FIG. 7A in that the “production plan creation” button 1101 is provided. When the "production plan creation" button 1101 is pressed on the order list / production instruction screen 1100, the production plan creation storage unit 1001 creates a production plan for the order information of the order list 1102.

The production plan creation storage unit 1001 selects the manufacturing process shown in Table 5 as a candidate from the product ID of the planned target order. There are several ways to determine one manufacturing process from a plurality of manufacturing process candidates. In the present embodiment, if there is a manufacturing process that can be tried in order and the manufacturing deadline can be met, the manufacturing process is adopted. Based on the values shown in Table 6, the working time in each planning process of each manufacturing process is calculated. Next, resource groups that can be used in each manufacturing process and each planning process are extracted with reference to Table 7. Then, the devices and workers belonging to the resource group are specified with reference to Table 8. In Table 8, when a plurality of devices and workers are defined in the resource group, one of the plurality of devices or workers is selected. There are various methods for selecting one from a plurality of devices or workers, but here, in order to level the load of the devices and workers, the allocation time (time reserved as the working time) is the shortest. Select a device or worker. However, in the case of continuous work, the same worker performs the work as much as possible.

It is assumed that the following selections for creating a plan are made by the above method.
Manufacturing process of order ID "OR901110": "P2_TCDA4"
Color printer and worker at the time of printing: "Printer B", "Worker B"
Cutting machine and worker at the time of cutting: "Cutting machine H", "Worker B"
Inspection management device and worker at the time of inspection: "Inspection management device", "Worker E"

FIG. 11B shows a configuration example of the production plan display / production instruction screen 1110 according to the present embodiment. On the production plan display / production instruction screen 1110, the plan result 1111 for the selected device and worker is displayed. When the "send" button 1112 is pressed on the production plan display / production instruction screen 1110, jobs are sent to each device selected in the plan in the order of the planned start time. In addition, the selected worker is notified by transmitting the target order information, the device used, the scheduled start time, the work content, etc. to the wearable terminal or the like equipped by the worker.

In the case of the above example, when the worker B receives the job transmission, the worker B prints the corresponding print data using the printer B. Next, the worker B cuts the printed intermediate product with the cutting machine H. Then, the inspection is performed by the worker E. After the inspection is completed, the number of failures for each process is input using the inspection screen (for each process) 900 shown in FIG. 9, and the actual data for each process is created. FIG. 12 shows an example of the created process-specific actual data. The process-specific actual data 1200 shown in FIG. 12 also holds information at the time of production planning, that is, attribute information associated with the process.

As described above, according to this embodiment, the number of failures and the failure rate for each process / attribute are retained as actual data. As a result, in addition to the effect of the third embodiment, the failure rate further subdivided from the process unit can be grasped. That is, even in the same process, the failure rate due to the difference in equipment and the difference in workers can be grasped. By grasping the failure rate due to the difference in attributes, the failure rate can be specified by the equipment and workers assigned at the time of planning, and the spare number can be calculated more accurately.

<Fifth Embodiment>
A fifth embodiment of the present invention will be described. By creating a production plan, it is possible to specify how much margin the order has to complete production and inspection by the production deadline. Utilizing this fact, by controlling the number of spares, it is possible to prevent delays in delivery and suppress waste of excessive production of spares. The part that overlaps with the above embodiment will be omitted, and only the difference will be described.

This will be described with reference to the production plan display / production instruction screen 1110 shown in FIG. 11B. In the production plan of the order ID "OR901110", the scheduled start time of printing, which is the first process, is "2019.01.28 09:23". The scheduled end time of the inspection, which is the final process, is "2019.01.28 10:11". The production deadline for the order ID "OR901110" is "2019.01.28 12:00". From the above, the production period required for production including inspection of the order ID "OR901110" is 48 minutes. The margin period from the scheduled end time of the final process to the production deadline is 109 minutes. The margin is calculated from the production period and the margin period by the following formula.
Margin = Margin period ÷ Production period Therefore, the margin of the order ID “OR901110” is 109 ÷ 48 = 2.2708.

If there is a margin of 1 or more, it means that there is sufficient time to produce even if the same number of production is produced. That is, if there is sufficient margin, there is a low probability that the delivery date will be delayed and the customer will be inconvenienced even if the product is reproduced. Therefore, if the above margin is 1.5 or more, the spare number may be reduced. On the contrary, if the margin is less than 1, it is necessary to add the spare number.

Table 9 shows an example of a spare number adjustment table for adjusting the spare number according to the margin according to the present embodiment.

When Table 9 is applied to the order ID “OR901110”, the spare number is subtracted by 30%, so that the spare number “24” becomes the spare number “17” by rounding up the decimal point by 24 × 0.7.

As described above, according to the present embodiment, by controlling the number of spare copies for the deliverable based on the scheduled production time and the production deadline, it is possible to suppress the waste of excessively producing spares while preventing the delivery delay.

<Sixth Embodiment>
In the above embodiment, although there are a plurality of steps, one part (for example, a leaflet) has been described. However, it is not limited to this. Book-based print products have multiple parts such as the cover, text, and jacket (cover), and each part may have its own process.

At the time of inspection, printing defects of the jacket (cover), the cover, and the text may be grasped and input as the number of failures in the jacket printing process, the cover printing process, and the text printing process, respectively. That is, the target for inputting the number of failures may be switched according to the type of the product and its constituent elements (parts). This makes it possible to calculate, for example, the failure rate for each part. That is, it becomes possible to calculate the spare number for each part. For example, if the failure rate of the jacket (cover) is higher than that of the cover or the text, it is possible to control to increase only the spare number of jackets (cover).

As described above, by performing the above control mode, the spare number of parts having a high failure rate is increased, and the spare number of parts having a low failure rate is not increased, so that production with less waste is possible.

<7th Embodiment>
Book-based print products have multiple parts such as the cover, text, and jacket (cover), and each part may have its own process. Then, the jacket (cover) is laminated after printing, and a fixing time of several hours may be required after the laminating process. In the production plan of such a product, the waiting time for the next process is planned during the fixing time. However, the presence of one such component extends the production period and reduces the margin. On the other hand, when viewed in units of parts, the decrease in the margin is due to the long production period of one part, and the production period of another part is short. In such a case, it is wasteful to uniformly add the spare numbers according to the margin.

Therefore, in one embodiment of the present invention, the spare number is added only to the parts having a long production period by calculating the production period in units of parts. The length of the production period here is not particularly limited, but a threshold value may be set in advance and determined by comparison with the threshold value. The number of spares is not limited to the choice of adding or not adding, and for example, even if the number of spares to be added is adjusted stepwise according to the length of the production period. Good.

As described above, with the above configuration, the spare number of parts having a long production period is increased, and the spare number of parts not having a long production period is not increased, so that less wasteful production is possible.

<8th Embodiment>
When producing a very small lot with an order quantity of 1 or 2, it is preferable to completely eliminate the production of the spare quantity itself. In the case of a very small lot, the disadvantage of always producing a number close to the number of orders as a spare is more than the disadvantage of having to start over from the printing process when a failure occurs by producing a spare number. Because it is big. In the above embodiment, unless the failure rate in all the steps becomes "0"%, a reserve number of at least "1" is generated even in the order of a very small lot. In the case of a very small lot, if the production can be completed with a sufficient margin before the production deadline even if there is no spare quantity at the time of production, even if all are reproduced, the production deadline can be met.

Therefore, in one embodiment of the present invention, the extremely small lot order is allocated in preference to the production of a larger number of orders at the time of planning, and the production plan is created ahead of schedule. The number of products produced, which is regarded as a very small lot, is not limited to 1 or 2, and may be determined according to the type and composition of the products.

With this configuration, the spare number is set to 0 according to the number of orders. As a result, it is possible to prevent the generation of unnecessary spares, meet the production deadline even without spares, and prevent delays in delivery.

<Other Embodiments>
The present invention supplies a program that realizes one or more functions of the above-described embodiment to a system or device via a network or storage medium, and one or more processors in the computer of the system or device reads and executes the program. But it is feasible. It can also be realized by a circuit (for example, ASIC) that realizes one or more functions.

The invention is not limited to the above embodiments, and various modifications and modifications can be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. Therefore, a claim is attached to make the scope of the invention public.

100 ... Production control device, 101 ... Ordering device, 102 ... Prepress device, 103 ... Printing device, 104 ... Post-processing device, 105 ... Inspection management device, 106 ... Network

Claims (13)

The first acquisition method for acquiring order information,
A second acquisition means for acquiring the number of failures during production of the product produced based on the order information, and
A storage means that stores the order information acquired by the first acquisition means and the number of failures acquired by the second acquisition means as actual data in association with each other.
Derivation means for deriving the failure rate in the production of deliverables based on the actual data stored in the storage means, and
Based on the failure rate derived by the derivation means and the production number of the deliverable specified in the new order information, as a determination means for determining the number of spare copies for producing the deliverable for the new order information. A production control system characterized by having. The determination means is
When the number of actual data stored in the storage means is less than a predetermined number, a predetermined number is determined as a spare number for producing a deliverable for the new order information.
When the number of actual data stored in the storage means is equal to or greater than the predetermined number, the failure rate derived by the derivation means and the number of products produced in the new order information are used. The production control system according to claim 1, wherein the number of spare copies of the deliverable for the new order information is determined based on the above. The production management system according to claim 1 or 2, further comprising a display means for displaying the number of spare copies derived by the derivation means. It also has a receiving means to accept the permissible value for the rate of occurrence of reproduction after producing the deliverable based on the order information.
Any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein when the permissible value is high, the number of spare copies for producing the deliverable is controlled to be smaller than when the permissible value is low. The production control system described in the section. The second acquisition means acquires the number of failures for each process for producing the deliverable, and obtains the number of failures.
The production control system according to any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein the out-licensing means derives a failure rate for each process for producing a deliverable. Further having a creation means for creating a production plan for a product composed of one or a plurality of processes based on the order information.
The production control system according to any one of claims 1 to 5, wherein the production means prepares the production plan using the number of spare copies of the deliverables determined by the determination means. The determining means is a claim characterized in that the number of spare copies for the deliverable is changed based on the production plan for the order information created by the creating means and the delivery date information specified in the order information. Item 6. The production control system according to item 6. The deliverable is composed of multiple parts
The second acquisition means acquires the number of failures for each component constituting the deliverable.
The derivation means derives the failure rate for each component constituting the product, and derives the failure rate.
The production control system according to any one of claims 1 to 7, wherein the determination means determines the number of spare copies for each component constituting the deliverable. The production control system according to claim 8, wherein the determination means determines the number of spare copies for each of the plurality of parts based on the time required for the production of each of the plurality of parts constituting the deliverable. The determination means is any one of claims 1 to 9, wherein when the number of produced products specified in the order information is less than a predetermined threshold value, the number of spare copies for the product is set to 0. The production control system described in the section. A storage means for storing the order information and the number of failures during production of the product produced based on the order information as actual data.
Derivation means for deriving the failure rate in the production of deliverables based on the actual data stored in the storage means, and
Based on the failure rate derived by the derivation means and the number of deliverables specified in the new order information, a determination means for determining the number of spare copies for producing the deliverable for the new order information. A production control device characterized by having. A derivation process for deriving the failure rate in the production of the deliverable based on the actual data in which the order information and the number of failures in the production of the deliverable produced based on the order information are associated with each other.
Based on the failure rate derived in the derivation process and the number of deliverables specified in the new order information, a determination step for determining the number of spare copies for producing the deliverable for the new order information. A production control method characterized by having. Computer,
A storage means that stores order information and the number of failures during production of products produced based on the order information in association with actual data.
Derivation means for deriving the failure rate in the production of deliverables based on the actual data stored in the storage means.
As a determination means for determining the number of spare copies for producing the deliverable for the new order information based on the failure rate derived by the derivation means and the number of deliverables specified in the new order information. A program to make it work.

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