A logistic process scheduling problem: Genetic Algorithms or Ant Colony Optimization?

Authors:	Silva Carlos, Instituto Superior Tecnico, Portugal Sousa J.M., Instituto Superior Tecnico, Portugal Runkler T., Siemens AG, CT IC-4, Germany Sá da Costa J.M.G., Instituto Superior Tecnico, Portugal
Topic:	5.2 Manufacturing Modelling for Management and Control
Session:	Production Planning and Scheduling - I
Keywords:	Logistic process optimization, genetic algorithms, ant colony optimization

Abstract

This paper compares the optimization of a logistic schedulingproblem using two different optimization techniques; the geneticalgorithms and the ant colony optimization. The comparison ispreceded by a literature review that summarizes the availablecomparison results for different benchmark problems and tries togeneralize the differences between the techniques. The simulationresults for the logistic problem confirm the conclusions of theliterature survey: both methods perform equally well, but ingeneral the genetic algorithms are faster. However, the antcolonies give more information about the solution, which isadvantage in some applications.