Patent Application
20070247656
The embodiments disclosed herein are directed toward production printing and more specifically to improved cost estimation techniques for estimating costs of production workflows and submitting bids based upon such estimates.
Production printing encompasses a variety of services and often requires use of multiple devices. Output can be printed on a variety of media, and can be bound, laminated, etc. Sometimes, a printer will have printing facilities located in multiple locations, and different facilities will have different production capabilities or capacities. Where the finished product is generated may call for a decision on the part of the publisher.
Further, today's Print-On-Demand (POD) allows a publisher to reduce costs by minimizing waste, such as by allowing the required number of copies to be printed only when needed. At the same time, it allows the publisher to update the content with the latest available information. Sometimes, scanned versions of out-of-print books are also made available to be printed when a request comes from a certain consumer.
Further benefits of POD can be reaped by allowing the print publisher to choose the location of the print facility from where the final product will be shipped out, by combining it with another concept called Distribute-then-Print (DTP). This will allow a print publisher to hasten the due date by eliminating the time required to ship a printed product from a central print facility to a major hub or city.
Customers will usually obtain one or more cost estimates before choosing production printing organization, especially when the order is large. Publishers typically use some sort of pre-flight software to calculate these cost estimates based upon the media and marking material to be used.
It would be useful if these estimates included shipping or delivery costs. In many cases, the customer does not have an accurate way to estimate the delivery or shipping costs before submitting a print order. After an order is completed, the resulting letter or package is weighed to determine the delivery or shipping costs using a certain delivery service's rates. These initial estimates would be more accurate if the costs are based upon the size and/or weight of the completed job.
Further, because materials and/or resources for a print job may not be present at one location, the cost of moving materials or resources from one site to another will also affect the final cost of a document and multiple locations may exist for where the final output may be generated. Therefore, it would be useful to a production printing company to include these factors in its cost estimates and when choosing a workflow.
Sometimes, people will order documents such as books, journals, etc., from companies. These documents may be printed on demand, thereby triggering the same issues with respect to costs.
Embodiments encompass a method that includes receiving information regarding a print order, generating a plurality of possible workflows to complete the print order, determining what materials and resources will be required to complete the print order, estimating a cost for completing the print order for each workflow including estimating costs for shipping some or all of the print job based upon the materials and resources to be used, and choosing a workflow to use to complete the print order based at least in part upon the estimated cost for each workflow.
Embodiments also encompass a method for generating a bid for a print job. The method includes receiving the details of a job to be printed, generating a plurality of possible workflows to complete the print order, determining the costs of each of the possible workflows, and submitting a bid for the print job based upon a cost of the cheapest of the plurality of possible workflows. Determining the cost of each workflow includes determining the costs of shipping materials between production sites as well as shipping a finished product.
Various exemplary embodiments will be described in detail, with reference to the following figures.
A printing device as used herein refers to any device that produces visible marks on paper. Printing devices include, for example, copiers, printers, or multi-function devices. Paper as used herein refers to any markable media such as, for example, paper, plastic, and textile materials.
A document as referred to herein includes one or more pages of printed paper or pages to be printed.
A document production organization can be any organization that produces documents for a fee such as, for example, a print shop, production printing company, or a publishing company.
When a document production organization receives the details of a job from a client, the document production organization calculates the time and cost of producing the job, and provides an estimate to the client. In many cases, the document production organization may have multiple workflows from which it could choose. The document production organization will typically choose a workflow based upon constraints such as time for completion and/or cost. Job costs are based upon materials used, size of job, etc. To help select an appropriate workflow, and to provide better estimates, especially for the purpose of bidding for a job, a document production organization should include accurate shipping costs for shipping some or all of the print job based upon the materials and resources to be used.
Shipping costs can include the costs of transporting portions of the job from one location to another as well as the costs of transporting the finished job to the client. Facilities in one location may be best equipped to handle one portion of a job, while facilities in another location may be best equipped to handle another portion of a job. Also, copies of a job, such as, for example, a report or manual, may ultimately be sent to recipients in multiple locations. If the document production organization has locations in multiple areas, it may allocate completion of copies of the job to multiple facilities based upon each facility's proximity to a recipient or recipients.
In embodiments, for example, shipping costs could be used to determine where the document production order is actually finished and/or where components of the document are completed. As previously discussed, the costs of transporting media can include both delivery of the final product as well as the costs of shipping part or all of the media from one location to another. The shipping costs calculated for each workflow at step 240 would include transportation costs for moving materials between sites, if any, as well as final delivery. This may factor significantly into workflow selection. For example, it may be desirable to have the final product produced in close physical proximity to the client. This would be especially true, for example, where components completed elsewhere could be shipped electronically, at little cost to that final location.
In embodiments, the client may be soliciting bids from multiple document production organizations directly or indirectly through a production service that solicits automatic bids from document production organizations. Typically, in either case, document production organizations that have a facility geographically close to the final destination are solicited. From among them, an algorithm is employed that chooses the organization that best meets the client's requirements. For example, only certain facilities have an integrated print capability to do all of offset-color, digital color, B/W and binding. The algorithm can also take into account the availability of a mail carrier at the earliest time after product finishing occurs. In addition, it also can take into account any reduced costs due to mass production. For example, if a document production organization has a facility that already has an inventory of certain type of paper, toner, and fonts, it can save time to use them at that facility even though it requires a little wait time, rather than to send it to another organization's facility and wait until resources arrive.
In embodiments, the client, or production service employed by the client, may select a combination of document production organizations to complete a particular job based upon the capabilities of the individual organizations. For example, an end to end document production scenario can include a group of people working on creating the document, another group working on editing, another on layout, another on pre-press activities such as color correction, another group on the printing aspects, another group on wrapping, packaging, shipping; yet other groups on order management, supply chain management, quality assurance, etc. These functions may all be accomplished within one production company, but they may also be accomplished by a combination of document production organizations. Many document production functions can be performed at geographically scattered locations, especially the ones upstream; e.g., the document creation groups working on illustrations, editing, layout, etc. The actual printing, packaging and quality assurance groups could be either located at or near the destination or at a place where the shipping time is minimal. For example, all the above activities except marketing and gaining orders can be done offshore. When shipping time is critical, printing and shipping can be done on-shore, while the rest can be performed over the Internet via many collaboration tools, such as email, VoIP, netconferencing, etc.
In summary, we the foregoing has described methods for workflow selection, cost estimation, bid submission, and bid selection for document production jobs.
While the present invention has been described with reference to specific embodiments thereof, it will be understood that it is not intended to limit the invention to these embodiments. It is intended to encompass alternatives, modifications, and equivalents, including substantial equivalents, similar equivalents, and the like, as may be included within the spirit and scope of the invention. All patent applications, patents and other publications cited herein are incorporated by reference in their entirety.
