Solving the integrated product mix-outsourcing problem using the Imperialist Competitive Algorithm

The integrated product mix-outsourcing optimization is a major problem in manufacturing enterprise. Generally, heuristic or meta-heuristic solution approaches are used to optimize such problems. Heuristic approaches for these problems include Theory of Constraints (TOC) and Standard Accounting. Sometimes heuristic approaches are inefficient especially in large problems and instead, in these cases meta-heuristic algorithms have been applied extensively. In this paper a novel meta-heuristic algorithm Imperialist Competitive Algorithm (ICA) is applied to solve the integrated product mix-outsourcing optimization problem. Also, the results obtained from ICA are compared with the results of TOC and Standard Accounting approaches. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.