Multi-population Binary Ant Colony Algorithm for the Horizontal Manufacturing Collaborative Alliance

Horizontal Manufacturing Collaborative Alliance (HMCA) is to minimize the comprehensive cost and balance the production loads among the selected manufacturing enterprises. An algorithm named Multi-population Binary Ant Colony Algorithm with Hybrid Behaviors (MPBAHB) is designed. On the basis of Binary Ant Colony Algorithm (BACA), two strategies of zoning and environmental evaluation/reward were introduced to compensate for the difficulty of getting multiple solutions at the same time. Moreover, a searching behavior named “central disturbing” was introduced to BACA, so as to strengthen the searching ability. The experimental prove that the algorithm can get better solutions while keeping the distribution of Pareto front.