A method for separating blanks includes continuous conveying of a sheet metal strip in a transport direction to a laser cutting station, concurrent cutting of the sheet metal strip by at least one cutting laser, wherein a cut sheet metal strip is formed from successive sections of the same cutting geometry, transporting the cut sheet metal strip on a first conveyor belt in the transport direction, taking over the cut sheet metal strip from the first conveyor belt, transporting the cut sheet metal strip in the transport direction, separately ejecting the at least one residual blank of each section, transporting the at least one blank of each section into overlap with a second conveyor belt and ejecting the at least one blank from the suction conveyor, and transporting the blanks ejected one after the other from the suction conveyor horizontally in the transport direction to a collecting station.

A method for providing a stack of book covers for production of finished books includes supplying a task stack of book covers having identical cover formats and stacked one above another in an unknown or known sequence. Each book cover in the task stack includes an identifier comprising cover information. The book covers are separated out and conveyed from the task stack as separate book covers in a sequence that does not change until a completion signal is transmitted. The separated out book covers are counted, an identifier on each separated out book cover is detected, and cover information is read out of the respective identifier stored. The separated out book covers are deposited on top of one another in the sequence in which they were separated out for forming a detected stack. An identifier is stored that identifies the detected stack together with the temporarily stored cover information.

The invention relates to a method for producing a product compilation, which comprises at least one main product and at least one or more subproducts. The main product or a subproduct is provided as a leading object with machine-readable data, which comprise a process key (1), which comprises at least one uniform resource identifier (URI, 2) and a control element region (3), wherein, in the production process, at least one machine recognizes the process key (1) and a work step of the machine is triggered by the process key (1).

Disclosed are a substrate package, a method of fabricating the substrate package, and a system including the substrate package. The substrate package includes a stack of substrate sheets in an individual form, a continuous form, or a roll form. The stack has a sidewall defined by edges of the substrate sheets and a mark on the sidewall includes mark segments on respective edges. The mark segments vary such that one or more of the mark segments have a respective segment characteristic, such as a length. The segment characteristic can encode information about an attribute of the substrate sheet, such as a physical characteristic of the sheet.

Disclosed are a substrate package, a method of fabricating the substrate package, and a system including the substrate package. The substrate package includes a stack of substrate sheets in an individual form, a continuous form, or a roll form. The stack has a sidewall defined by edges of the substrate sheets and a mark on the sidewall includes mark segments on respective edges. The mark segments vary such that one or more of the mark segments have a respective segment characteristic, such as a length. The segment characteristic can encode information about an attribute of the substrate sheet, such as a physical characteristic of the sheet.

According to an example, an apparatus may include an automatic document feeder, printing components, an externally accessible embedded finishing mechanism, an illumination source to direct attention to the embedded finishing mechanism, and a controller. The controller may determine whether a certain condition has been met pertaining to media sheets fed into the automatic document feeder or printed by the printing components, and in response to a determination that the certain condition has been met, may activate the illumination source.

Disclosed are a substrate package, a method of fabricating the substrate package, and a system including the substrate package. The substrate package includes a stack of substrate sheets in an individual form, a continuous form, or a roll form. The stack has a sidewall defined by edges of the substrate sheets and a mark on the sidewall includes mark segments on respective edges. The mark segments vary such that one or more of the mark segments have a respective segment characteristic, such as a length. The segment characteristic can encode information about an attribute of the substrate sheet, such as a physical characteristic of the sheet.

Disclosed are a substrate package, a method of fabricating the substrate package, and a system including the substrate package. The substrate package includes a stack of substrate sheets in an individual form, a continuous form, or a roll form. The stack has a sidewall defined by edges of the substrate sheets and a mark on the sidewall includes mark segments on respective edges. The mark segments vary such that one or more of the mark segments have a respective segment characteristic, such as a length. The segment characteristic can encode information about an attribute of the substrate sheet, such as a physical characteristic of the sheet.

The disclosed supply roll (5) comprises a roll core (6); flat material and/or strip material (8) being carried on the roll core (6) in a multitude of windings; and at least one functional marker (2). The at least one functional marker (2) is placed in a specified relative position at an externally arranged free end section (7) of the flat material and/or strip material (8) such that information about the relative position of the free end section (7) is optically identifiable by way of the at least one functional marker (2).

Systems and methods for detecting the presence of metallic objects in media to be conveyed in a medium transport system are disclosed. One or more induction sensors are included in the medium transport system to detect the presence of metal in the transported media, with detection signals sent from the sensors to a system processing unit. An ultrasonic detector is employed in some embodiments to output another detection signal. One or more microphones may also be included, for detecting the sound created as the medium is being transported. The system processing unit analyzes various detection signals and analyzes computed sound values from the microphones, to determine the presence and location of metal in the media. A position jam detector may assist in determining jams of the media along the medium transport path.