ABSTRACT
Deadlock is a circular wait situation in which some jobs (parts) in a set re main indefinitely blocked because each of them requests access to a resource held by some parts in the same set; in this case, any further job flow is inhibited. This condition may arise in production systems with a high level of resource sharing, such as automated manufacturing systems (AMS), consisting of a set of worksta tions performing different operations and of a material handling system carrying parts among workstations. Both workstations and transport devices are under con trol and supervision of one or several computers that are in charge of properly managing all the resources, preventing the system from reaching any deadlock condition.
