9.8 Summary

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9.8 Summary

Petri nets have been available as a modeling tool since the late 1960s. Since this point in time they have gone through many transitions and improvements. At first they were more of a curiosity than anything else, since there were no means available to construct and analyze models easily. Since these early days, many computerized tools have become available, allowing us to run simulations of a model's structure and to collect performance information. Some specialized Petri net analysis tools have also been developed and are widely available.

In this chapter we covered a basic introduction to Petri nets, their properties, and their modeling capabilities. This basic overview was then followed up by more refinements on the basic model. First, we added the concept of transition time to our initial model concepts. We then followed this up with the concept of priority of transitions. Next, we introduced the concept of token types and transition firing rules in colored Petri nets. Finally, we completed our overview of Petri nets with a discussion of generalized Petri nets and their capabilities.

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