What is Technologist Ants

The authors propose an algorithm for the reorganization of a production department in cells, starting from a situation of job shop, chasing the main goal of group technology (GT)—that is, to gather pieces with similar technological cycles and to associate every group of items (family) to a group of machines (cell) able to realize all the necessary activities. To get this result, a behavioral pattern has been developed, having its origin in the ants’ way of sorting food, larva, and pupa in an anthill. As first results have shown, such an approach turns out to be interesting, provided that the algorithm parameters are adequately set.