Petri net modeling of manufacturing processes for CAD/CAM and FMS applications

This paper presents a methodology for modeling of manufacturing processes of mechanical parts. The demand for integration of manufacturing process model into product model is taken into account. In this important field of application, a need has been emerged for description of all process variants in a single model and for generic model descriptions for a cluster of manufacturing tasks. The authors have developed a four levelled generic process model. Entities of this model are easy to understand for production engineers that are represented by Petri net. In the paper, first the importance of the manufacturing process model and its interconnections with other product related models are emphasized. Following this, the manufacturing process model is described and the method of its application is outlined. Next, creating and evaluation of the model are explained. Finally, features of the model and the modeling activity are concluded.