title: A graph-based ant colony optimization approach for process planning.
abstract: The complex process planning problem is modeled as a combinatorial optimization problem with constraints in this paper. An ant colony optimization (ACO) approach has been developed to deal with process planning problem by simultaneously considering activities such as sequencing operations, selecting manufacturing resources, and determining setup plans to achieve the optimal process plan. A weighted directed graph is conducted to describe the operations, precedence constraints between operations, and the possible visited path between operation nodes. A representation of process plan is described based on the weighted directed graph. Ant colony goes through the necessary nodes on the graph to achieve the optimal solution with the objective of minimizing total production costs (TPC). Two cases have been carried out to study the influence of various parameters of ACO on the system performance. Extensive comparative experiments have been conducted to demonstrate the feasibility and efficiency of the proposed approach.
authors.affiliation: School of Energy, Power and Mechanical Engineering, North China Electric Power University, Baoding 071003, China.
authors.forename: JinFeng
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: School of Energy, Power and Mechanical Engineering, North China Electric Power University, Baoding 071003, China.
authors.forename: XiaoLiang
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Fan
authors.affiliation: School of Energy, Power and Mechanical Engineering, North China Electric Power University, Baoding 071003, China.
authors.forename: Shuting
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Wan
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D000818:Animals; D001000:Ants; D003196:Computer Graphics / Q000295:instrumentation; D009716:Numerical Analysis, Computer-Assisted / Q000295:instrumentation