Development of an RMS Model based on Colored Object-Oriented Petri Nets with Changeable Structures

Current research on reconfigurable manufacturing systems (RMSs) only highlights the isolated empirical study with a limited attempt to explore the modeling and design support issues surrounding this economically important class of system development problems. This paper proposes colored object-oriented Petri nets with changeable structures to shed light on how RMSs can dynamically reconfigure system components to accommodate production variations resulting from diverse changes in product design and order quantities. The proposed model is discussed in detail using a case example.