Workflow nets for flexible manufacturing systems

Abstract

Since the sixties, the industry has begun an accelerated process of automation, which has led to the need for analysis, definition, modeling and management of the workflows for the manufacturing processes. A flexible manufacturing system (FMS) is an automatized system which includes automatic equipments for quick and correct operations, handling of products and materials and who includes computerized control for activities. Due to the complexity of these systems, the necesity  to verify their correctness theoretically by mathematical methods before being implemented in practice is obvious. A workflow net (WF net) is a mathematical model, based on Petri nets, for workflow modeling. This paper wants to emphasize the advantages of using WF nets for describing FMSs and to show how this can be realized.