Patent ID: 7518743

Claim:
A printing system comprising: at least one customer service system for receiving, via a network, order information sent by a customer and representing at least one print service to be performed on image data; a plurality of servers for performing print services on image data; and an order assigning system existing between the at-least-one customer service system and the servers, for receiving the order information from the customer service system, for selecting one of the servers to perform the at least one print based on predetermined information, and for transferring the order information to the selected server; wherein the order assigning system transfers laboratory information regarding at least one of the servers to the customer service system that received the order information, the customer service system generates selection information for determining the selected server based on the laboratory information transferred from the order assigning system, and transfers the selection information to the order assigning system, and the order assigning system uses the selection information as the predetermined information, wherein the selection information includes a candidate list of candidate servers determined based at least on the laboratory information transferred from the order assigning system, wherein the customer service system allows a user to designate the desired one of the servers from the selection information, wherein the order assigning system uses the user designation as the predetermined information, and wherein the order assigning system determines the selected server based on the laboratory information and customer-specific information, wherein the laboratory information is based on the location of the at least one laboratory and said customer-specific information is a customer's address or a customer's area code.