Generation of process variants in automated production planning by using Ant Colony Optimization

Small and medium sized Enterprises (SME) are often in dependence to large-scale enterprises in their role as supplier. Rising international competition increases that pressure to SME´s. Hence, it is enormously important for such enterprises to be able to react fast to customer demands but also to keep high quality standards. Therefore CAPP (Computer Aided Production Planning)-systems were introduced. The paper shows a solution of an automated, integrated solution for automated and integrated process and production planning and defines the part of the generation of process variants.