Production planning based on an ant colony algorithm for steel-making and continuous casting

An ant colony algorithm of self-organization resource allocation for dynamic procedure networks in production process was proposed to improve the validity of resource allocation in steel-making and continuous casting production planning. A production planning model for steel-making and continuous casting was established with sequence casting constraint. In the model, the objective is to minimize the operation conflict time and the queue waiting time and to start pouring early. The ant colony algorithm was designed on the base of the time and space reverse relation of structure of procedure networks in production process. The test with production data in a commercial steel plant shows that the model and algorithm can draw quickly a high-quality and performable production plan.