Design of reconfigurable manufacturing control applied in a material handling production system using Petri nets

Manufacturing systems must necessarily be reconfigurable to assure features of adaptability to unpredictable changes, agility, flexibility and efficiency. The reconfigurable manufacturing system (RMS) has a more adaptable perspective, because it is adjustable to the business and market interests. This reconfigurability systems behavior includes not only information processing but physical transformations and material handling. The reconfigurable manufacturing control system (RMCS) must ensures the system functionalities and the requirements of actual production line, considering the appropriate use of mechatronic and computer-aided technologies. The strategy is to reconfigure the functionality of the system or maintain critical operations so that parts affected by the fault are disabled without affecting other parts of the system. Petri net (PN) is used for description of the system behavior and conversion to a programmable logic controller (PLC) language facilitating the implementation phase, because its advantages as a technique for modeling discrete event system and its similarities to IEC60848 GRAFCET language. Therefore, this paper presents a method for design of RMCS based on PN technique and an application to control a material handling production system.