Abstract
In the 21st century, the energy situation is becoming worse and worse. As the oil has been explored continuously, the number of petroleum in the crust and the development of the amount of oil continued to decline, it becomes one of the world's most valuable resources now. Therefore, its price has been rising rapidly. As a typically industry production process, refining process is the pillar industry of the national economy, which is located in the upper reaches of the manufacturing industry. It is also the main driving force for the development of other industries. Only by making scientific and rational production plan of refinery can we make oil refining enterprises get ahead in the fierce market competition. However, there are some problems happening in the process, such as devices and equipment failure, and poor quality of uncertain events. They will change the device products, raw materials, and energy supply and demand, which is difficult to grasp the balance just by artificial experience, and then causes the excessive waste of resources and energy. Then it will result in loss of the interests of the enterprise and even the threat of production safety. These problems need scientific methods to solve urgently. Ant colony algorithm (ACA) is a heuristic search algorithm based on population optimization. As a new bionic algorithm, ant system has attracted the attention of many experts and scholars, and has interpreted many different improved versions. Because the ant colony algorithm has many advantages in solving combinatorial optimization problems, it has been widely applied in academic, industrial and commercial fields. In this paper, the production scheduling of refinery is optimized effectively by using the advantages and disadvantages of ant colony algorithm. First of all, the composition and production process of refinery are paid great attention. Secondly, the advantages of ant colony algorithm are introduced. Finally, the ant colony algorithm is used to optimize the traditional scheduling method. The production scheduling method after optimization can make the refinery satisfy the market demand, and save production costs, too. It can also increase economic efficiency, and improve the technology and management level. Besides, it can enhance the competitiveness of enterprises, which has a great significance for the actual production.
