Timed Petri Net-based Collaborative Design Process, Temporal Reasoning And Simulation Study

Collaborative design is an advanced product design pattern which is based on the theory of modern design. It is a process that the whole product design goals are completed by the cooperation of two or more design subjects in the computer supported network environment. The design work is carried out based on the whole life cycle information demand of the design object and is by a certain degree of information exchange, knowledge sharing and collaborative mechanisms. It considers the collaborative issues in the product design process as the research object. The purpose of collaborative design is to improve design efficiency, shorten the design cycle and enhance the product competitiveness.Collaborative design process is a process to solve the design problems based on the existing design theories and methods. It is a complex process in which the design tasks will be concurrently implemented and the design process will be dynamic and uncertain. In order to let the product win the market, an enterprise should predict the time of the entire design process adequately in the planning and design stage. So the enterprise can find problems as soon as possible. Based on the in-depth analysis of the characteristics of collaborative design process and time Petri net (TPN), the following research was mainly done in this paper:Firstly, the formal definition of collaborative design process model based on time Petri net is proposed.Secondly, the equivalent simplification and time reasoning rules of several basic models in collaborative design process are given based on time Petri net. Apply the equivalent simplification and time reasoning rules to the entire model of the collaborative design process, the earliest finish time and the latest finish time of the entire process can be deduced.Finally, a simulation system is developed by Delphi, which provides a visual simulation environment for modeling and time reasoning. The model of the collaborative design process can be constructed on the platform. Also, by input the time parameter of the activities, the real-time running status can be simulated at different initial conditions, and the earliest finish time, the latest finish time and the time between the earliest and latest finish time of the entire process can be deduced quickly and automatically.The time reasoning result provides a reference for time arrangement and planning of the tasks in collaborative design. The simulation tool facilitates the time performance analysis of collaborative design. It has greatly reduced the time-consuming of the temporal reasoning work. Also the system had better applicability and scalability for the collaborative design of products.