This paper presents an efficient method to derive the first passage time of
an extended stochastic Petri net by simple algebraic operations. The reach
ability graph is derived from an extended stochastic Petri net, and then co
nverted to a timed stochastic state machine which is a semi-Markov process.
The mean and the variance of the first passage time are derived by algebra
ic manipulations with the mean and the variance of the transition time, and
the transition probability for each transition in the state machine model.
For the derivation, three reduction rules are introduced on the transition
trajectories in a well-formed regular expression. An efficient algorithm i
s provided to automate the suggested method.