Treffer: Implementation of the Maintenance and Repair System Using the Ant Colony Algorithm.

In this research, the issue of maintenance and repairs for machines is addressed by considering the skills of the maintenance and repair team, as well as the varying repair times for different machines and devices. The goal is to achieve a balanced workload for repairmen based on their skills and experience. In order to investigate the efficiency of the proposed algorithms, two sets including small dimensions with 8 problems and medium to large dimensions with 12 problems have been produced. Also, in this research two approaches have been utilized to tackle this problem. The first is a mixed integer programming model for small dimensions, but its limitations in solving medium to larger problems make the use of meta-heuristic algorithms necessary, utilizes an ant colony optimization (ACO) algorithm to solve the model for practical scales. Also, in order to compare which algorithm has a better efficiency for evaluation, the ACO and GA algorithm have been used. Computational results have demonstrated the superiority of the ant algorithm over other heuristic algorithms in solving real-sized problems. This approach has been successfully implemented in the repair and maintenance department of Khosroniko Plast Production Company. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]