Investment-Cost Optimization of Plastic Recycling System under Reliability Constraints

Abstract : This paper describes and uses an ant colony meta-heuristic optimization method to solve the redundancy optimization problem in plastic recycling industry. This problem is known as total investment-cost minimization of series-parallel plastic recycling system. Redundant components are included to achieve a desired level of availability. System availability is represented by a multi-state availability function. The plastic machines are characterized by their capacity, availability and cost. These machines are chosen among a list of products available on the market. The proposed meta-heuristic seeks to find the best minimal cost plastic recycling system configuration with desired availability. To estimate the series-parallel plastic machines availability, a fast method based on universal moment generating function (UMGF) is suggested. The ant colony approach is used as an optimization technique. An example of plastic recycling system is presented.