Methods and systems for routing and processing jobs in a production environment

A system for processing a set of jobs, the system comprising:

• a set of one or more devices in a production environment;
• a workflow management system operable to coordinate a distribution of jobs to the devices;
• and
• a computer-readable storage medium comprising one or more programming instructions for performing a method of processing a set of jobs, the method comprising:
• providing a job set comprising one or more jobs, wherein each of the one or more jobs has one or more corresponding setup characteristics,
• storing the job set in a computer-readable storage medium,
• identifying each job set as a first job processing speed set, a second job processing speed set or a third job processing speed set based on the one or more corresponding setup characteristics by:
• identifying the one or more corresponding setup characteristics, wherein each corresponding setup characteristic comprises one or more types, for each corresponding setup characteristic,
• determining a number of corresponding types associated with the job set, determining that the set is a first processing speed set if, for each corresponding setup characteristic, the number of corresponding types does not exceed a first threshold value associated with the corresponding setup characteristic,
• determining that the job set is a second processing speed group if the number of corresponding types of at least one corresponding setup characteristic associated with the job set exceeds a second threshold value associated with the corresponding setup characteristic, and
• determining that the job set is a third processing speed set if, for each corresponding setup characteristic, the number of corresponding types is greater than the first threshold value and less than the second threshold value,
• if the job set is a first job processing speed set, routing the job set to a first subset of the set of one or more devices, wherein the first subset comprises one or more first devices for processing the job set,
• if the job set is a second job processing speed set, routing the job set to a second subset of the set of one or more devices, wherein the second subset comprises one or more second devices for processing the job set, and
• if the job set is a third job processing speed set, routing the job set to a third subset of the set of one or more devices, wherein the third subset comprises one or more third devices for processing the job set.

A computer-implemented method for processing a set of jobs, the method comprising:

• providing a job set comprising one or more jobs to be processed in a production environment, wherein each of the jobs has one or more corresponding setup characteristics;
• storing the job set in a computer-readable storage medium;
• identifying the job set as one of a first job processing speed set and a second job processing speed set based on the corresponding setup characteristics by:
• identifying the one or more setup characteristics, wherein each corresponding setup characteristic comprises one or more types,
• for each corresponding setup characteristic, determining the number of corresponding types associated with the job set,
• determining that the job set is a first processing speed set if, for each corresponding setup characteristic, the number of corresponding types associated with
• the job set does not exceed a threshold value associated with the corresponding setup characteristic, and
• determining that the job set is a second processing speed set if the number of corresponding types of at least one setup characteristic associated with the job set exceeds the threshold value associated with the corresponding setup characteristic;
• if the job set is a first job processing speed set, routing the job set to a first subset of the set of one or more devices, wherein the first subset comprises one or more first devices for processing the job set;
• and
• if the job set is a second job processing speed set, routing the job set to a second subset of the set of one or more devices, wherein the second subset comprises one or more second devices for processing the job set.