Patent ID: 7065567

Claim:
A printing workflow system disposed in a network environment for coordinating production of document processing jobs, said printing workflow system comprising: a plurality of autonomous cells, wherein each autonomous cell is comprised of a plurality of devices and resources with at least some devices and resources performing distinct operations from one another, and that are configured to be capable of entirely completing at least one type of document processing job within said autonomous cell such that there is no dependence upon other autonomous cells for completing a selected one type of document processing job; a workflow mapping module that determines workflow for the selected one of said document processing jobs by identifying a sequence of operations needed to be performed to complete the selected document processing job; a job decomposition module for splitting the selected document processing job into a plurality of autonomous sub-jobs that are accomplished by the autonomous cells, wherein splitting occurs based on determined differences between said sequence of operations of the selected document processing job and further splitting may occur on the autonomous sub-jobs containing the same sequence of operations to facilitate faster completion by using multiple devices; a cell assignment module for assigning said autonomous sub-jobs to said given ones of the autonomous cells capable of entirely accomplishing said autonomous sub-jobs; and a product cell controller at a selected one of the given autonomous cells for receiving at least one of said autonomous sub-jobs and for further splitting said at least one autonomous-sub job into lots for processing among said plurality of devices in said selected autonomous cell, wherein a selected device within the plurality of devices and resources uses a kanban based pull control policy to request work by sending authorization to the upstream product cell controllers to supply said device with authorized work.