Determination of the Shortest Route on the Distribution System using Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) Algorithm (Case Study: Alfamidi Palu Branch – PT. Midi Utama Indonesia)

Abstract

The distribution system of goods is one of the most important parts for every company. The company certainly has many route options to visit, and this is expected to be conducted efficiently in terms of time. In the distribution of goods by Alfamidi company in Palu City which has 51 outlets include into the category of Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) because of many route options that can be visited. The problem can be solved by employing the Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) method which is one of the algorithms Ant Colony System (ACS). The ACS acquires principles based on the behavior of ant colonies and applies three characteristics to determine the shortest route namely status transition rules, local pheromone renewal and global pheromones. The result showed that the shortest route of the distribution of goods based on the calculation of selected iterations was ant 1 with the shortest total distance obtained 86.98 km.