Patent ID: 7542161

Claim:
A method of processing a print job, comprising: receiving a print job in a printing environment, the printing environment comprising a plurality of print-related devices; identifying a total processing time T(b) for each of a plurality of batch sizes b using a formula corresponding to: T ⁡ ( b ) = ∑ i = 1 , i ⁢ ⁢ β n ⁢ ( s i + bp i ) + X + ( N b - 1 ) ⁢ max i = 1 ∈ { 1 , 2 , ⁢ … ⁢ , n } , i ⁢ ⁢ β ⁢ ( s i + bp i , Y ) where s i represents setup time for a function i of a first device in the printing environment, p i represents processing time of one unit in the device function i, b represents a batch size for the print job, N represents the total number of items in the print job, and β represents a set of functions on at least a second device in the printing environment; and comparing the total processing time T(b) for the plurality of batch sizes to determine which of the batch sizes is optimal for the printing environment.