Conceptual approach to modeling the procurement process of construction using Petri-Nets

One way to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of procurement processes is to improve the timeliness of information flows between and among project participants. This can be achieved by condensing sequential processes into concurrent processes that are synchronized so their effectiveness and efficiency can be improved. Essentially existing processes (workflows) are redesigned so that savings in time and cost can be achieved. In order to identify and design the optimum workflow, it is important to have an effective modeling language to describe and simulate the actual operational process. Recently, Petri-Nets (PN) have been used in the manufacturing industry as a tool to analyze the concurrency of operations. Research results indicate that PNs are a useful tool for formalizing, simulating, and designing systems and processes that communicate with one another and need to be synchronized. This paper presents a simple introductory experiment to demonstrate how PNs can be used to simulate workflow in order to identify the optimum procurement process. Initial results from the experiments are reported in the paper.