A theoretical framework to model and analyze manufacturing systems

This paper proposes a model for manufacturing systems, which is based on Petri net formalism. It relies on the bottom-up and modular approaches to synthesis and analysis. The designer may define elementary tasks and then connect them with one another with three kinds of connections. A theoretical framework is established for the analysis of the liveness and reversibility properties. The boundedness one can be trivially verified. The analysis is based on the modular decomposition of the net. This framework allows a guided synthesis and diagnosis in the design stage, while giving the designer more freedom than other similar approach proposed in the literature. The model here illustrated proved to be wide enough to encompass other known similar models. This work is an extension of preceding works, related to a research commenced a few years ago