Patent ID: 8860984

Claim:
A system comprising: a memory that stores different workflow rules, defined for each of multiple different customers, that describe logical relationships of activities at a print shop; an interface that receives print jobs for each of the multiple different customers; a workflow generator that, for each of the print jobs, accesses the memory to identify workflow rules defined for the customer that the print job is for based on an identity of the customer, that identifies activities available at the print shop, and that generates a custom workflow for the print job based on the identified workflow rules defined for the customer, the available activities, and a job ticket of the print job, wherein each custom workflow comprises an ordered set of activities; and a resource manager that directs resources of the print shop to perform the activities of each custom workflow, wherein the workflow generator further identifies print shop resources used for the activities in a custom workflow, identifies sets of independent activities in the custom workflow based on the resources used by the workflow activities, and parallelizes the custom workflow by scheduling the sets of independent activities to be performed in parallel.