Variable fault tolerance methods and systems to support an intervention-by-choice strategy for production piezo ink jet architectures

Methods and systems are provided for an intervention-by-choice printhead maintenance method in an ink jet printing system. Profile representations of scheduled print jobs are compiled which are representative of ink jet performance demand therefor. An ink jet failure is detected and related to the profile representations. A likely impact of ink jet failure is assessed relative to job specific print quality requirements for the scheduled print jobs. Print jobs are rescheduled for enhancing system performance efficiency by re-queuing selected jobs that can be executed with a detected ink jet failure while satisfying a job specific print quality requirement before a system repair intervention.