Claims
- 1. A factory for processing jobs-in-progress, and producing completed work, said factory comprising:
- a plurality of machines for receiving and processing ones of said jobs-in-progress and at least a portion of said plurality having waiting queues, said machines providing status information relating to respective ones of said waiting queues;
- a source of orders;
- a source of user-selected job release criteria, said criteria including at least one of a respective utilization factor and a respective job on-time factor assigned to respective ones of said machines;
- storing means, responsive to said source of orders, for storing pending orders, and for releasing a selected order for inclusion in said jobs-in-progress in response to selection information; and
- means, responsive to information from said storing means, to said source of job release criteria and to said machine status information, for producing and revising said selection information so as to cause said selected order to be that order which has the greatest likelihood of achieving any of said utilization factor and said job on-time factor for said ones of said machines.
- 2. The factory of claim 1, wherein said selection information producing means comprises a computer.
- 3. The factory of claim 2, wherein said order storing means comprises a data base stored on a computer.
- 4. The factory of claim 3, wherein said selection information producing means and said order storing means are comprised on the same computer.
- 5. The factory of claim 4, wherein said machines are controlled by a computer system directly connected to said information producing means and order storing means computer.
Parent Case Info
This is a division of application Ser. No. 07/284,165 filed Dec. 14, 1988 and now U.S. Pat. No. 4,956,784.
US Referenced Citations (7)
Divisions (1)
|
Number |
Date |
Country |
Parent |
284165 |
Dec 1988 |
|