Patent Document ID: 8548621
Application ID: 13017485
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A production system, comprising: at least one resource operative to perform at least one production operation to produce products; a plurality of actuators individually operative according to a corresponding actuator control input signal or value to facilitate production of products using the at least one resource; a model including correlations between desired product characteristics and nominal operating points of the actuators; a controller coupled with the production resource and the actuators and operative to automatically perform an experiment including a plurality of runs to produce a corresponding set of test products according to at least one desired test product characteristic, the controller providing actuator control input signals or values to the actuators in each run of the experiment to cause the resource to produce a test product according to actuator nominal operating points defined by the at least one desired test product characteristic, with each run including at least one predetermined perturbation by which an operating point of at least one of the actuators is offset from the actuator nominal operating point, where at least two of the runs of the experiment have different predetermined perturbations; and at least one sensor coupled with the controller and operative to sense the at least one desired test product characteristic of the test products; the controller being operative to perform an analysis of the sensed characteristics of the set of test products relative to the at least one desired test product characteristic and to selectively update the correlations between desired product characteristics and actuator nominal operating points of the model at least partially according to the analysis; where the system is a document processing system, comprising at least one marking device resource operative to transfer marking material onto a corresponding medium to produce test patch products; where the plurality of actuators are individually operative according to a corresponding actuator control input signal or value to adjust an operating parameter associated with transfer of marking material onto the medium; where the at least one sensor is operative to sense a marking material transfer condition associated with the test patch products: where the controller operatively coupled with the marking device resource and operative to selectively cause the at least one marking device to transfer marking material onto the medium, the controller being operative to automatically perform the experiment including a plurality of runs to produce a corresponding set of test patches on the medium according to at least one desired test patch characteristic, the controller providing actuator control input signals or values to the actuators in each run of the experiment to cause the marking device to produce a test patch on the medium according to actuator nominal operating points defined by the at least one desired test patch characteristic, with each run including at least one predetermined perturbation by which an operating point of at least one of the actuators is offset from the actuator nominal operating point, where at least two of the runs of the experiment have different predetermined perturbations, the controller being operative to perform the analysis of the sensed characteristics of the set of test patches relative to the at least one desired test patch characteristic and to selectively update the correlations between desired test patch characteristics and actuator nominal operating points of the model at least partially according to the analysis; and where the location of the test patches on the medium is a perturbation of the experiment.