The Petri Net Baukasten: 2nd Installment

Abstract

Petri nets are a subject of interest to researchers since more than 30 years. They became popular since they allow the graphic representation of computational structures and have a formal underpinning that allows formal proofs of properties. Their use in engineering, however is limited to a rather small number of applications. Many of the graphic notations used in practice are very similar to the graphic representation of Petri nets but do not make use of the rich body of theory that exists for Petri nets. This is repeatedly attributed to the fact that Petri nets and the associated theory are hard to understand and real life problems modelled with Petri nets tend to require special brands of Petri nets which in turn led to a great variety of different net types. Finding the right Petri net types from the portfolio of existing types, finding corresponding techniques and tools, selecting them and applying them successfully to applications poses a problem and prevents their wide spread use. In order to improve this situation, a Petri Net Baukasten has been developed by the DFG-Forschergruppe Petri Net Technology in Berlin. It aims at the development of a support environment for the use of Petri nets in new applications including theoretical and tool aspects. This paper presents the 2nd Installment of the Petri Net Baukasten, which extends the first installment of the Petri Net Baukasten, documented as Initial Realization in 1999, by providing interfaces, services, and data for specific user groups such as application developers, tool developers and Petri net experts. The user interface offers an intuitive presentation of Petri net concepts and notions. The Petri Net Baukasten supports different user groups in their specific work with Petri nets by user specific assistence services. These services allow the users to find the right Petri net types in a variety of existing types and support their selection and use. Information is kept in an associated database. Furthermore the assistence services maintain this database in order to keep track of recent developments in theory, tools and application areas.