Papers Published

1. Agrawal, M; Chakrabarty, K; Zeng, J; Lin, IJ; Dispoto, G, Simultaneous task scheduling and resource binding for digital print automation, 61st Annual Iie Conference and Expo Proceedings (January, 2011) .
   (last updated on 2022/12/30)

   Abstract:
   On-demand digital printing is a form of personalized manufacturing service. It provides unique opportunities to automate the printing process, enhance productivity, and better utilize resources (equipment, servers, IT infrastructure, etc.). In this work, we demonstrate how concepts from electronic design automation can be adapted for an important optimization problem in digital printing, viz., simultaneous mapping of component tasks of a print job to time steps (scheduling), selection of resources for these tasks, and mapping of tasks to resources (binding). We model print jobs, the relationships between them, and dependencies between tasks within a job, in terms of sequencing graphs. This formal representation is then used for scheduling and resource binding. The optimization objective is to enable just-in-time manufacturing, that is, to minimize the slack time for job orders, i.e., the duration between the delivery deadline and the completion time of the order. The optimization is carried out under the constraint that no job order misses its delivery deadline. The proposed approach uses genetic algorithms (GA) to systematically search the space of feasible solutions. The fitness function of the GA is carefully crafted to match the optimization objective. The optimization technique is evaluated using print orders from a commercial print service provider and compared to baseline methods commonly implemented at the industrial settings.