Patent ID: 8433604

Claim:
A system for determining price models of a print market port, the system comprising: processor; and a computer-readable storage medium in communication with said processor, wherein the computer-readable storage medium comprises one or more programming instructions for: partitioning a job dataset into a plurality of categories, each of the plurality of categories having a pricing model; determining one or more factors within the job dataset that influence a price of each job in the job dataset; developing an input/output model for each job in the job dataset that influences the price of the job; performing an iteration to compute a prediction error for each job in the job dataset that influences the price of the job; removing one or more jobs from a subsequent iteration that include prediction errors that exceed a prediction error threshold; performing a plurality of iterations on remaining jobs until a predetermined average error prediction is reached; determining an optimal job dataset including a sample set of jobs remaining after the plurality of iterations; and, determining the pricing model using the optimal job dataset.