Designing reconfigurable manufacturing systems using reconfigurable object Petri nets

Abstract

In reconfigurable manufacturing systems (RMSs), the structure of the system can be changed during its execution. This reconfiguration can be triggered by several motivations: a new requirement in the production process, avoiding some problems caused by machines breakdowns, etc. RMSs are characterised by their flexibility which guarantees productivity and efficiency. However, their design is more complicated and needs new techniques and paradigms. The use of high level Petri nets (PNs) offers the ability to design these systems and to analyse their properties. In this article, the authors apply reconfigurable object nets (RONs) for the modelling, simulation and analysis of RMSs. Indeed, a formal method is proposed, where the reconfiguration process is specified explicitly as a graph transformation, the simulation is realised using the RON-tool, and the analysis exploits the TINA-tool (timed nets analyser tool).

Keywords:

• manufacturing systems
• reconfigurable manufacturing systems
• Petri nets
• high level Petri nets
• graph transformations
• reconfigurable Object Nets

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.