JPH05229105A - Planning device for operation schedule of printing press - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To obtain a printing press operation schedule forming device which can form an optimum schedule by taking a set-up time into consideration when a plurality of items are to be printed by a plurality of printing presses. CONSTITUTION:Throughput data related to a throughput intrinsic for every printing press is stored in a throughput data storage part 11. In an item data storage part 12, item data representing an individual processing content for every item to be printed is prepared. A schedule table forming part 21 forms a schedule table assigning each item in the item data to each printing press by referring to the throughput data. A schedule table correction part 22 corrects the schedule table by rearranging a plurality of items assigned to the same printing press so that a difference in tone between the continuous items is reduced.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a system for planning the operation of a printing machine, and more particularly to a system for planning a schedule for printing a plurality of items to be printed by operating a plurality of printing machines.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In various production processes, a plurality of production machines having different processing capacities are used at the same time, and a number of items are assigned to the respective production machines for processing. For example, in the processing of printed materials, printing of printed materials having various sizes and various colors is processed by a plurality of printing machines. In this case, in order to operate the printing press most efficiently, it is necessary to make a plan for which printing press and which item is processed in which order. In particular, for printed materials of magazines, since the publication time is fixed, it is necessary to make a schedule by giving priority to delivery conditions. In addition, since each printing machine has different processing capacity, it is necessary to make a plan so that the machine capacity can be fully utilized.
For example, in a printing press capable of printing up to 4 colors, it is more efficient to process 4-color items than to process 2-color items.

For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 3-32556 discloses a schedule planning device for automatically planning a schedule for sequentially printing a plurality of items to be printed by operating a plurality of printing machines. ing. With this scheduling device,
It has a function of preparing processing capacity data relating to the processing capacity peculiar to each printing machine in advance and making an optimum schedule while referring to this processing capacity data.

[0004]

As described above, in the conventional operation schedule planning apparatus, each item is assigned to each printing machine based on the processing capacity data relating to the processing capacity peculiar to each printing machine. For example, a four-color item is assigned to a printing press that is capable of printing up to four colors. At this time, if there are multiple printing presses capable of processing the item, it will be assigned to the most suitable printing press in consideration of the processing contents and delivery date of other items at that time. ..

Generally, when processing one item with one printing machine and subsequently processing the next item, preparations such as replacement of ink are required. However, since the above-described operation schedule planning apparatus does not consider the optimization of the preparation time, it is not always possible to perform the optimum planning as the overall schedule including the preparation time.

Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide an operation schedule planning apparatus for a printing machine, which can perform an optimum schedule planning in consideration of preparation time.

[0007]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to an apparatus for planning an operating schedule of a printing machine in order to sequentially print a plurality of items to be printed by operating a plurality of printing machines. A processing capacity data storage device that stores processing capacity data relating to a specific processing capacity, and an item data storage device that stores, for each item to be printed, item data indicating individual processing contents related to the processing capacity of the printing machine. And a schedule table that refers to the processing capacity data of the printing machine, allocates each item in the item data to a predetermined printing machine, and creates a schedule table in which the items to be printed for each printing machine are arranged in the order in which they should be printed. For the schedule table, the creating means and multiple items assigned to the same printing machine are rearranged to reduce the color difference between consecutive items. And will table correction means for performing a modification, in which the provided.

[0008]

[Operation] In the operation schedule planning apparatus for a printing machine according to the present invention, the schedule table created by the schedule table creating means is modified. That is, a plurality of items assigned to the same printing machine are rearranged so as to reduce the color difference between successive items. For this reason, when printing is performed for the next item after printing for one item is completed, it is planned that the color tone difference between the two items for the ink used will be as small as possible. Generally, when printing the next item, the preparation time can be shortened if the difference in color tone from the previous item is small. Therefore, according to the device of the present invention, it is possible to perform an optimal schedule planning in consideration of the preparation time.

[0009]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The present invention will be described below based on illustrated embodiments. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the basic configuration of an operation schedule planning apparatus for a printing machine according to an embodiment of the present invention. The main components of this device are a storage device 10, an arithmetic processing device 20, a working memory 23, an input device 30, an output device 40,
Is. Each of these components can actually be implemented using a personal computer or workstation. A processing capacity data storage unit 11 and an item data storage unit 12 are provided in the storage device 10. However, the storage units 11 and 12 are conceptually classified according to the difference in the content of the stored data, and such a classification is not necessarily made in terms of the hardware configuration of the storage device. .. The data stored in each of the storage units 11 and 12 will be described in detail later. The arithmetic processing device 20 has a function of performing a schedule planning process based on each data in the storage device 10, and includes a schedule table creating unit 21 and
The schedule table correction unit 22 is a feature of the present invention. However, this schedule table creation section 2
1 and the schedule table correction unit 22
This is a block diagram of the function of
These are realized by a program executed by the arithmetic processing unit 20. The work memory 23 is a memory used as a work area of the arithmetic processing device 20. The input device 30 includes input devices such as a keyboard and a mouse, and has a function of inputting data to the arithmetic processing device 20. The output device 40 is composed of an output device such as a display and a printer, and has a function of outputting the processing result of the arithmetic processing device 20 and the like.

This schedule planning device is a device for planning the operation schedule of each printing machine when a plurality of items to be printed are sequentially printed by operating a plurality of printing machines. Here, for convenience of explanation, four types of printing machines from No. 1 to No. 4 are used, and 13 kinds of weekly magazines a, b,
An example will be described where c, ..., K, l, m (items to be processed) are printed. First, in the processing capacity data storage section 11, processing capacity data for these four printing machines is prepared. FIG. 2 shows an example of this processing capacity data. In this example, two capabilities are defined for each printing press: plate size and number of colors. For example, Unit 1 is
It has the ability to print up to A-line size and up to 4 colors. Such processing capacity data is registered in the processing capacity data storage unit 11 in advance using the input device 30, for example. Alternatively, processing capacity data may be transmitted from a host computer (not shown) and stored in the processing capacity data storage unit 11.

On the other hand, the item data storage unit 11 stores item data indicating the processing contents for each item. FIG. 3 shows an example of such item data. In this example, the processing contents of 13 items from item a to m (for example, printing of 13 kinds of weekly magazines) are shown. The processing contents include plate size, color information, number of lots, delivery date,
Each data of is prepared. In the color information, an ink code that specifies the color of each ink used for 2-color printing or 4-color printing is shown. For example, item a is a 4-color weekly magazine with A4 size and ink code a.
Information that prints using the inks indicated by 1, a2, a3, and a4 is shown, and the processing content is such that the number of lots is 1 unit (for example, 10000 sheets) and the delivery date is 2 days later. Similarly for item b, ink code b1, b
It is an item of four-color printing using each ink indicated by 2, b3 and b4. As shown in the processing capacity data of FIG. 2, such four-color printing can be processed only by No. 1 and No. 3. For example, when the item a is processed using the No. 1 machine, the ink shown by the ink codes a1, a2, a3, a4 is set in each of the four printing units provided in the No. 1 machine for printing. .. On the other hand, for example, item c has ink codes c1 and c.
It is a two-color printing item using the ink indicated by 2. Two-color printing like this can be done with the 2nd or 4th machine.
Printing can be performed by a printing machine having only one printing unit, or printing can be performed by using only two printing units of a printing machine having four printing units such as No. 1 machine or No. 3 machine.

The purpose of this scheduling device is to
The purpose is to create a schedule table for sequentially allocating three items to four printing machines. Note that such item data is input by the sales person from the input device 30 or input by the sales person from another terminal (not shown) via the host computer (not shown). The data can be stored in the item data storage unit 11 by being transmitted.

The schedule table creating unit 21 refers to the processing capacity data in the processing capacity data storage unit 11 and prepares 13 as item data in the item data storage unit 12.
The work of assigning the types of items a to m to the four printing machines is performed. FIG. 4 is an example of the schedule table created in this way. Here, the column marked "This week" is
This is a schedule table for this week created based on the item data shown in. In addition, item w in the column marked "Last week",
x, y, and z are items assigned in the planning work last week, and are listed for reference of the table correction work described later. According to the schedule for this week in this table, for example, the first machine is assigned the items d, a, b, and f in this order, and the second machine is assigned the items c and e in this order. The numbers on the right side of each item indicate the delivery date of each item. According to the processing capacity data of FIG. 2, the No. 2 machine and the No. 4 machine have only two-color printing capacity. Therefore, in the item data of FIG. 3, an item having four colors cannot be assigned to the second and fourth units. Regarding the plate size, since No. 1 and No. 2 have the processing capacity to print the A-row, and No. 3 and No. 4 have the processing capacity to print the B-row, It must be assigned to a printing machine that supports the plate size. The schedule table creation unit 21 has a function of creating a schedule table as shown in FIG. 4 in consideration of the processing capacity of each printing press and the delivery date of each item. The schedule table creation calculation algorithm is disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 3-32556, so detailed description thereof will be omitted in this specification.

The features of the operation schedule planning apparatus according to the present invention are as follows:
The point is that the table created by the schedule table creation unit 21 is modified by the schedule table modification unit 22. The schedule table correction unit 22 has a function of rearranging a plurality of items assigned to the same printing machine so as to reduce the color tone difference between successive items.
Moreover, in the apparatus of this embodiment, the rearrangement is limited to the range of the items having the same delivery date in order to avoid the occurrence of some items whose delivery date cannot be kept due to the rearrangement. For example, considering the schedule assigned to Unit 1, the items d, a, and b all have a delivery date set to 2 days, and even if the order is exchanged with each other, this delivery will cause the delivery date to change. There is no loss of protection. Therefore, the schedule table correction unit 22 executes the following rearrangement for these three items. First, with respect to the print color of the last item w of the last week assigned to the first machine, the item having the print color with the smallest color difference is selected from the three items d, a, and b. That is, the color tone difference between the item w and the item d, the color tone difference between the item w and the item a, and the color tone difference between the item w and the item b are obtained, and which is the smallest is determined. If the difference in color tone between the item w and the item b is the smallest, it can be said that it is most efficient to print the item b immediately after the item w. For example, the ink pan cleaning time and color matching time will be shorter when printing an orange color with a small color difference than when printing a green color with a large color difference immediately after printing a red color. That would be easy to predict. Therefore, in the case of the above-mentioned example, first, the item b is assigned to the head. Subsequently, with respect to this item b, the color difference between the item d and the item a is compared. If item d has a smaller color difference,
The items b, d, and a are rearranged in this order.

Similar rearrangement is performed for each printing machine. In the example shown in FIG. 4, the items for Unit 2 are not rearranged because the items have different delivery dates, but for Unit 3, item g and item i are subject to rearrangement, and Unit 4 is item k. , L, m are targets of rearrangement. By such rearrangement, the schedule table shown in FIG. 4 is modified, for example, as shown in FIG. When only the actual printing time is taken into consideration, there is no difference between the schedule table in FIG. 4 and the schedule table in FIG. 5, but considering the preparation time such as ink pan cleaning and color matching required during each item processing, It is more efficient to carry out the schedule table of No. 5.

By the way, in order to perform the calculation for comparing the color tone differences in the schedule table correction section 22, it is necessary to express the color tone differences by numerical values. Here, some specific methods for numerically expressing this color tone difference will be described. Generally, a color can be represented by three values of hue, saturation, and lightness. Therefore, the color difference can be defined based on these three values. Specifically, the hue difference is defined by the total value obtained by weighting the hue difference, the saturation difference, and the lightness difference with predetermined weights. That is, the hue H of the first color
1, saturation S1, lightness B1, and based on the hue H2, saturation S2, and lightness B2 of the second color, weighting factors X,
Using Y and Z, color tone difference D = X | H1-H2 | + Y | S1-S2 | + Z |
The color difference D can be defined by the calculation B1-B2 |. Further, in a multi-color printing machine, the total sum obtained by weighting the color tone difference D for each ink used in a plurality of units is set as the total color tone difference Dtotal, and rearrangement is performed to minimize this Dtotal. You can do it like this. For example, since the first machine in the above example has four units, the color tone difference D of the ink used in the first unit is
Color difference D2 of ink used in the first and second units, third
The color tone difference D3 of the ink used for the unit and the color tone difference D4 of the ink used for the fourth unit are respectively obtained, and predetermined weighting factors W1 to W4 are used, and the total color tone difference Dtotal = W1D1 + W2D2 + W3D3 +
The total color tone difference Dtotal may be obtained by the calculation W4D4.

In printing building materials such as wallpaper, the color tone C may be defined by a simple expression of color tone C = lightness B.multidot.360 + hue H, and the color tone difference between the two colors may be obtained. Here, the brightness B is set to 0 to 9 and the hue H is set to 0 to 359. In this simple equation, the saturation S is completely ignored and the hue C is mainly the lightness B.
It becomes the value decided by. Generally, in building materials such as wallpaper, the difference in hue and saturation depending on the item is relatively small, so there is no big problem even if the tone difference is calculated using the above simple formula. When applied to a multi-color printing machine, the total color tone difference Dtotal for each unit may be obtained as described above, but one representative unit is defined in advance to simplify the calculation. Alternatively, the rearrangement may be performed in consideration of only the color difference of the representative unit.

Although the present invention has been described above based on the illustrated embodiment, the present invention is not limited to this embodiment and can be implemented in various modes other than this. For example, in the above-described embodiment, the sorting is performed only within the range of items having the same delivery date, but the present invention is not limited to such an example, and the range to be sorted by the operator is not limited. May be specified in units of date and time. With this method, it is possible to specify the range to be rearranged, such as "items scheduled for noon of Monday to Wednesday" in the schedule of this week. Further, in the above-described embodiment, for convenience of description, two steps are performed: a pre-stage of creating the schedule table by the schedule table creating unit 21 and a post-stage of modifying the completed table by the schedule table modifying unit 22. Although the procedure has been described, the present invention does not necessarily have to perform such a two-step process. For example, while the schedule table creating unit 21 is executing the process of creating the schedule table, the schedule table correcting unit 22 may sequentially make corrections in parallel.

Further, in the above-mentioned embodiment, the schedule is made so that the color difference between the items allocated before and after is reduced, but as a method for shortening the preparation time, other than reducing the color difference, Various methods are possible. For example, you can sort items that use the same plate consecutively, or you can sort items that have the same plate size, items with the same material width, items that use the same ink, etc. It is possible to make an efficient schedule that shortens.

[0020]

As described above, in the apparatus for planning the operation of the printing machine according to the present invention, a plurality of items assigned to the same printing machine is planned to reduce the color difference between successive items. It is possible to make an optimal schedule considering the preparation time.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a basic configuration of an operation schedule planning apparatus for a printing machine according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of processing capacity data stored in a processing capacity data storage unit 11 of the operation schedule planning apparatus for the printing machine shown in FIG.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of item data prepared in an item data storage unit 12 of the operation schedule planning apparatus for the printing machine shown in FIG.

4 is a diagram showing an example of a schedule table created by a schedule table creation unit 21 of the operation schedule planning apparatus for the printing machine shown in FIG.

5 is a diagram showing an example of a schedule table corrected by a schedule table correction unit 22 of the operation schedule planning apparatus for the production machine shown in FIG.

[Explanation of symbols]

 10 ... Storage device 11 ... Processing capacity data storage unit 12 ... Item data storage unit 20 ... Arithmetic processing device 21 ... Schedule table creation unit 22 ... Schedule table correction unit 23 ... Working memory 30 ... Input device (keyboard / mouse) 40 ... Output Device (Display / Printer)

 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continued Front Page (72) Inventor Yuji Kase 1-1-1, Tanikaga-cho, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo Dai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd.

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A device for planning an operating schedule of a printing machine for sequentially printing a plurality of items to be printed by operating a plurality of printing machines, the processing relating to a processing capacity unique to each printing machine. Reference is made to a processing capacity data storage device that stores capacity data, an item data storage device that stores, for each item to be printed, item data indicating individual processing contents related to the processing capacity, and the processing capacity data. Then, each item in the item data is assigned to a predetermined printing machine, and a schedule table creating means for creating a schedule table in which the items to be printed for each printing machine are arranged in the order in which they should be printed are assigned to the same printing machine. The scheduled table modification that corrects the scheduled table by rearranging the selected multiple items so as to reduce the color difference between consecutive items. Planned operating planning apparatus for a printing machine, characterized in that it comprises a means. 2. The operation schedule planning apparatus according to claim 1, wherein data relating to the delivery date of each item is prepared as part of the item data, and the schedule table correcting means refers to the data relating to this delivery date to set the delivery date. A printing machine operation schedule planning device characterized by performing rearrangement within a protected range. 3. The operation planning apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the hue difference is defined by a total value obtained by weighting hue difference, saturation difference, and lightness difference with predetermined weights. A printing machine operation schedule planning device.