Integrated process planning and scheduling with setup time consideration by ant colony optimization

Abstract

This paper presents an ant colony optimization (ACO) approach in solving integrated process planning and scheduling (IPPS) with the consideration of setup time. Lots of approaches are proposed to solve the IPPS problem. Most of these approaches ignored the consideration of setup time in order to simplify the problem. This practice may be justifiable for some situations. However, it is not practical for the job involving a lot of sequent-dependent setup time. This paper will also discuss the importance of the consideration of setup time in handling IPPS problem.