The present invention provides a method to support the coordination of geographically
distributed printing and, in particular, identification of possibilities for distributing
print jobs to other shops for production. The technique involves the forwarding
of production schedules by a number of print shops to a central location, where
they are accessible to other print shops and can be used as a resource for identifying
possible collaboration partners for distributed production. The technique builds
on the common understanding and similar representation in the print industry of
the production schedule, a device which charts the plan assignment of print job
to particular machines for some future period. The novelty of the present invention
lies in the sharing of production schedules through forwarding them to a central
location in order to support the coordination of distributed production printing.