Journal of Materials Processing Technology 76 (1998) 212 – 218 Modelling and design of ﬂexible manufacturing systems using SADT and Petri nets tools Krzysztof Santarek a, *, Ibrahim M. Buseif a,b a Institute for Organisation of Production Systems, Faculty of Production Engineering, Warsaw Uniersity of Technology, 85 Narbutta Str., 02 -524 Warsaw, Poland b Faculty of Industrial Engineering, Uniersity of Garyounis, Garyounis, Libya Received 26 May 1997; received in revised form 14 July 1997 Abstract This paper describes an approach to manufacturing systems design that allows automatic generation of controller logic from a high level system design speciﬁcation. The high level system design speciﬁcation was developed using SADT method and Design/IDEF software package. The interface is based on a number of transformation rules from an IDEF0 speciﬁcation into a Petri net. A standard qualitative analysis and simulation of the Petri net is used to determine if the manufacturing system will operate in the desired manner. © 1998 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved. Keywords: Flexible manufacturing systems; Structured analysis and design technique (SADT); Petri nets 1. Introduction The purpose of this paper is to introduce a method and tools supporting design of automated manufactur- ing systems and their sequential controllers. The design of manufacturing systems and the development of man- ufacturing system controllers have become closely linked as the manufacturing environment has got more automated. This is especially true in the case of ﬂexible manufacturing systems (FMS’s). The transition from manufacturing system design to management and con- troller design is often an awkward process. Part of this problem consists in lack of standard tools for transla- tion of a manufacturing system description into a spe- ciﬁcation of management and control functions. This paper describes an approach that enables automatic generation of controller logic directly from a high level system design speciﬁcation. The high level system de- sign speciﬁcation was developed with the use of SADT method and Design/IDEF software package. The inter- face is based on a number of transformation rules from an IDEF0 speciﬁcation into a Petri net. A standard qualitative analysis and simulation of the Petri net is used to determine if the manufacturing system will operate in the desired manner. 2. An introduction to SADT/IDEF0 and Petri net modelling Structured analysis and design technique (SADT) is a standard tool used in design of computer integrated manufacturing systems, including ﬂexible manufactur- ing systems. Although SADT does not need any speciﬁc supporting tools, several computer programs imple- menting SADT methodology have been developed. One of them is Design/IDEF, which implements IDEF0 method. SADT/IDEF0 represents activity oriented modelling approach. IDEF0 representation of a manu- facturing system consists of an ordered set of boxes representing activities performed by the system. The activity may be a decision-making, information conver- sion, or material conversion activity. The inputs are those items which are transformed by the activity; the output is the result of the activity. The conditions and rules describing the manner in which the activity is performed are represented by control arrows. The * Corresponding author. Fax.: +48 22 499798; e-mail: ksan@wip.pw.edu.pl 0924-0136/98/$19.00 © 1998 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved. PII S0924-0136(97)00350-6