Application of Ti alloys in areas where wear resistance is of importance calls for thorough investigations of their tribological properties. This article shows the feasibility of a novel approach, which can be generalized for optimization of microstructures and tribological properties, provided objective functions can be specified. Initial process plan solutions are formed and encoded into particles of the PSO algorithm. The particles fly intelligently in the search space to achieve the best sequence according to the optimization strategies of the PSO algorithm. Meanwhile, to explore the search space comprehensively and to avoid being trapped into local optima, several new operators have been developed to improve the particles' movements, forming a modified PSO algorithm. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.