A novel Ant algorithm for permutation flow shop problem

Abstract

A new ant algorithm for the permutation flow shop problem is presented, which embraces two new features. One is a different yet outstanding pheromone structure, in which an ant is permitted to select more than one jobs at each step when constructing a complete travel sequence. The other is a new heuristic to guide the search. Experiments shows that a considerable improvement of performance can be obtained, and the reason behind is presented.