A formal approach for the specification, verification and control of flexible manufacturing systems

This paper introduces a formal specification model that covers a large class of real flexible manufacturing system (FMS). Using this model, a designer expresses the functional capacities of his system and the product flows. Parallel manufacturing processes, having, transformation, assembly, disassembly, test and storage operations, are considered. FMS specification is automatically transformed into a CP-net model. Hence, the verification and the supervisory control techniques based on CP-nets can be applied to the generated CP-net. Thus, a parameterized solution is defined taking into account the flexibility of the specification model. The present work led to the implementation of a specific tool, called MAC-FMS, allowing graphical specification, supervisory control and verification through its interaction with CPN tools environment (Jensen´s tool).