Modeling and performance simulation of mould-design process

Abstract

Mould design usually lies on the critical path of new product development. The mould-design process generally involves complex and multi-related design problems. The use of the IDEF0 descriptive model or similar tools alone in the analysis of complicated processes like the mould-design process usually encounter difficulties due to the complexity of the process. A quantitative analysis model thus seems necessary to supplement the IDEF0 tool for better modeling and simulation of complicated processes. In this paper, we propose to use the colored Petri nets tool for systematic and through analysis of the complicated mould-design process. We introduce an effective modeling and simulation language-hierarchical timed colored Petri-net-based workflow nets (HTCPNWF-nets). The rules for translating IDEF0 into HTCPNWF-nets have been developed. After mapping IDEF0 model onto HTCPNWF-nets, several performance analyses can be achieved by simulation of HTCPNWF-nets model. The proposed methodologies have been successfully applied to the mold design process.