Colored Petri Nets with changeable structures (CPN-CS) and their applications in modeling one-of-a-kind production (OKP) systems

In this paper, colored Petri Nets with changeable structures (CPN-CS) are defined. The mechanisms used for carrying out the structure changes include change-by-modification (CBM) and change-by-composition (CBC). CBM is for modification of the structure of the current CPN model while CBC is for the composition of another CPN into the current CPN. A case study is provided to show that CPN-CS is effective for modeling one-of-a-kind production (OKP) system that is characterized by product design uncertainty and changes in resource availability.