Dynamic analysis of repetitive decision-free discrete-event processes: Applications to production systems

This paper is the second part of a work devoted to timed marked graphs, their underlying algebra, and their applications to model the dynamic behavior of production systems in which a set of activities is performed repetitively in fixed sequences. Theoretical aspects are considered in the first part. In addition, an algorithm to properly characterize and capture the periodic behavior of such systems is described. The relevance of this class of models and the associated solution algorithm to the performance evaluation of certain types of flexible manufacturing systems is emphasized here. Examples of various modeling capabilities are provided. The analysis of timed marked graphs is an extension of PERT/CPM-like techniques to asynchronous and repetitive processes, whose graph-theoretic models contain cycles of activities.