Importance

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Abstract

A process controls the routing of an arriving job in a job stream through a switch to one of a plurality of processing stations. At predetermined time intervals, occupancy factors associated with the stations are computed as determined by station configuration information and job stream information. Upon the arrival of an incoming job, the occupancy factors corresponding to the current processing status of the stations are used to compute station utilization values. The station having the minimum utilization value is selected to receive and process the incoming job provided this minimum value is less than a preselected threshold; otherwise, the incoming job is denied processing permission.

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First Claim