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ÓÎ Áåëîðóññêèé ãîñóäàðñòâåííûé ýêîíîìè÷åñêèé óíèâåðñèòåò

 

Petri nets in business processes modeling

 

Creation of systems of efficient organisations management is one of the major problems facing to the modern business. Active introduction of the information technology providing a regulation of business processes in a control system is directed on increase of activity efficiency of the organisation, basically at the expense of creation of production costs decrease.

Business processes modeling acts as an effective remedy of optimisation ways search in organisation activity, as a mean of planning, forecasting and minimisation of the risks arising at various stages of live ability of the enterprise. In these conditions the great value is got by the information on efficiency of the organisation of employees’ work of the enterprise participating in realisation of certain business processes. Such information allows operating costs on manufacture and selling of products (services).

Traditional methods of an estimation and costs planning are focused on a final stage of creation of a product and do not consider cost of the processes carried out thus which is creating and not creating value for consumers. For the purpose of revealing, analysis, estimation, and also optimisation of these processes (first of all those that don’t create value for consumers), it is expedient to use modern information technologies, allowing to model business processes of the various organisations. Model construction allows specifying inconsistency of operations, their duplication, optimum sequence of accomplishing, etc. The means of business processes modeling give the chance to carry out their cost analysis. With its help it is possible to reveal and reduce the price of expensive operations, to determine and exclude excessive operations and, thus, to reduce cost of manufactured production (services).

Nowadays a number of the technologies intended for business processes modeling are known. However the widest application in practice of the foreign and domestic enterprises was received by CASE-technologies. To the technologies of the given kind concern the means of a simulation modelling on the basis of Petri nets. With their help it is possible to describe and analyse duration of accomplishing and interaction of operations in processes for the purpose of revealing of bottlenecks of system, and also to specify size and reserves of reducing of expenses of human, financial and other resources on accomplishing of these processes. The basic advantages of using Petri nets for business processes modeling include the following: 1) the process specified in terms of Petri nets has clear and accurate idea; 2) presentation of a drawing network construction thanks to which all its determinings and algorithms are easily perceived; 3) possibility of using set of methods for the analysis.

Petri net is represented by the focused count with tops of two types – positions and transitions. In the position of net markers (counters) are located. Their moving displays dynamics of modeled processes. Traffic of markers results from accomplishing of transition under the influence of outage events.

Process modeling «Accomplishing of clients’ orders » on the basis of Petri nets has been performed at the Belarus enterprise of Open Society "Minskcontract". The basic direction of organisation activity is a wholesale trade of material resources. The organisation sells a wide spectrum of production of industrial, cultural and community appointment. The industrial enterprises, the enterprises of agroindustrial and building complexes, housing and communal services and other organizations are among its buyers. However the greatest share in the aggregate turnover volume makes social sphere (culture establishments, formations, public health services and social security) – 55,8 %.

At process modeling «Performance of clients’ orders » network transitions (t1, t2, … t9) look like vertical lines and correspond the sets of operations on process performance. Positions are represented by ovals and correspond to the conditions of transitions. By arrows the arches connecting tops the column of different type are shown. In a position of a network as markers (counters) objects – orders from the various enterprises, arriving on "Minskcontract " (Pn) and resources (R1), corresponding to stocks of the goods at depot the organisations act.

As an entrance place of a network (P1) act the orders which have arrived in the organisation (in the form of demands) from buyers, and target places – delivered (P10) or taken out by transport of the client (P11) the completed orders.

The analysis of behavior variants of Petri net was made on the basis of a tape of the approachability having the linear representation form of the set of final network conditions (Sn), achievable of its initial condition (S0). So, to an initial condition of the network constructed for process «Performance of clients’ orders» on "Minskcontract", there correspond two orders which have arrived in position P1. As a result of the spent calculations it has been revealed that the approachability tape has 15 final condition statuses (both orders are rejected – S3; one order is rejected, one – is provided and delivered to the client – S7, etc.). Analyzing them, it is possible to draw a conclusion that the network is constructed correctly. It means that in a network there are no not final deadlock condition statuses in which any transition is not activated, and also there are no cycles without an exit.

On the basis of the spent analysis of a correctness of construction of Petri net the scheme of process including 5 basic operations has been made: acceptance and handling of orders (Î1), an estimation of a stock position of the goods at depot (Î2), a complete set of orders (Î3), expectation of delivery of the necessary goods (Î4), dispatch of orders (Î5).

Application of the constructed model to accomplishing concrete orders of the enterprise "Minscontract", has allowed to specify optimum time on each operation and process as a whole. On the basis of participating in realisation of process resources time and cost, costs on performance of each order have been calculated, which have appeared on the average on 15-20 % below planned. Profitability of performance of orders has accordingly grown.

 

 

 

Literature

1.     Petri, C. Fundamentals of a Theory of Asynchronous Information Flow / C. Petri // Proceedings of the 1962 IFIP Congress. – Amsterdam, North Holland, 1962.

2.     Peterson, J. Petri Net Theory and the Modeling of Systems / J. Peterson. – Prentice Hall, 1981.

3.     Ãàìàþí, È.Ï. Ðàçðàáîòêà èìèòàöèîííûõ ìîäåëåé íà îñíîâå ñåòåé Ïåòðè /  È.Ï. Ãàìàþí. – Õàðüêîâ: ÍÒÓ «ÕÏÈ», 2002. – 143 ñ.