On Resource Arc for Petri Net Modelling of Complex Resource Sharing System

PFS-R – Production Flow Schema with Resources – is a novel graphical representation for complex resource sharing discrete production systems proposed in this paper. The PFS-R is an augmented version of the PFS (Production Flow Schema, previously proposed by the authors) which includes correspondences of system resources at each production step. The PFS-R is able to model system structures as well as system behaviours in a more simplified and transparent manner than ordinary Petri net representations. That is, the PFS-R solves an important drawback when actually adopting Petri nets as a design technique for intelligent manufacturing systems. First, the paper introduces the basic elements of PFS-R, and the equivalent transformations of PFS-R model into hybrid nets and Petri nets, taking into account the net conservativeness. Next, examples of discrete production systems to illustrate the effectiveness of PFS-R are presented. In addition, it is shown, using an example, that the correspondence between resources and production steps in the process flow has a tree structure, which is an effective way to evaluate whether or not the objects designed have a well-defined structure.