Using Petri Net and Branch and Bound Algorithm for Modeling and Scheduling of a Flexible Manufacturing System

In this paper a flexible manufacturing system is investigated where the production process is accomplished in two main stages: machining and assembling. For Modeling of the system the timed Petri net is used. The minimum time requirement for completing the machining is discussed so that assembling the parts would be performed at the possible least time. Scheduling the manufacturing system is performed via a Petri net based controller supervised by a branch and bound algorithm. Also for speeding up the running of algorithm a new method is introduced which doesn't need large memory. The proposed approaches are verified through simulation results.