Generating Process Alternatives in Production Planning

In their role as a supplier small and medium sized Enterprises are often in dependence of large-scale enterprises. Rising international competition increases that pressure on SMEs. To react fast and flexible to customer wishes but also keeping high quality standards by saving costs, is enormously important for such enterprises. Especially at single or small-scale production the automated production planning is a big challenge. This article shows a possible solution to that problem in form of an automated and integrated production planning. In particular the article illustrates the generation of process alternatives within the solution by using Ant Colony Optimization.