Title: Petri nets with exclusive entities for decision making

Authors: J.I. Latorre; E. Jiménez

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Energetics and Materials, Public University of Navarre, Campus of Tudela, Ctra. Tarazona, Tudela 31500, Spain ' Department of Electrical Engineering, University of La Rioja, Logrońo 26004, Spain

Abstract: The design of Discrete Event Systems (DES) can be seen as a sequence of decisions leading to a final product that complies with a set of specifications and operates with efficiency. These decisions usually include the choice among a set of alternative structural configurations for the DES. This paper discusses the formalisation of a decision problem based on a DES into an optimisation problem, stressing and making explicit the exclusiveness between alternative structural configurations. This approach broadens and improves the classical methodology for solving the mentioned problems with new ideas and techniques. A significant advantage achieved consists of increasing the efficiency of the solving techniques by removing redundant information in the Petri net model of the DES and by unifying the solution space.

Keywords: decision support systems; DSS; DES; discrete event system; exclusive entities; optimisation; undefined parameters; parametric Petri nets; decision making; alternative Petri nets; undefined Petri nets; compound Petri nets; simulation; process modelling.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSPM.2013.055178

International Journal of Simulation and Process Modelling, 2013 Vol.8 No.1, pp.66 - 73

Received: 23 Nov 2011
Accepted: 14 Feb 2012
Published online: 13 Sep 2013 *

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