Stochastic timed Petri nets to dynamically design and simulate industrial production processes

Abstract

Stochastic timed Petri nets are among the most effective languages to model event driven uncertain processes. Their adoption in the industrial sector is even more diffuse and of potential help for the practitioners. This paper presents a stepwise approach to support the dynamic design and simulation of manufacturing and assembly production processes. An industrial application from the white good sector, based on a semi-automatic assembly line is, further, discussed demonstrating the approach flexibility and the modelling language key strengths. The stochastic timed Petri net model for such a scenario is described together with the simulation outcomes of interest for the assembly line design and the production and maintenance activity scheduling.