Smart batch is an IBM product that is available with MVS to improve batch job preformance by
overlapping batch jobs. The concept is virtually identical to the MS/DOS and UNIX concept of
pipelining in which jobs send (pipe) their output records to the input stream of another
program.
For example, consider a series of batch jobs (or a set of steps in a single job) that extract
a set of data from a large file, sort the data and generate report based on the sorted data.
If the extract job (step) takes 20 minutes, the sort 10 minutes and the report 5 minutes, the entire
process without Smart batch will take 35 minutes. With Smart batch, the jobs could be scheduled
to run concurrently with the result of the report job finishing shortly after the extract job completes.
See the IBM manual Smart Batch Overview for more information.