Abstract: The production process of non-ferrous metal smelting is complex, the environment is harsh, the level of automation is low, and the process and equipment are relatively backward, which seriously restricts the healthy development of China's non-ferrous metal smelting industry.This article is based on the intelligent factory project of a domestic lead and zinc smelter, and studies the path planning technology of intelligent forklifts during the transportation process of coarse lead ingots.A path planning method based on improved ant colony algorithm is proposed, and it is simulated and compared with traditional ant colony algorithm.The research results indicate that the improved ant colony algorithm significantly improves the search efficiency of path planning for lead ingot intelligent forklifts, and can effectively achieve optimal path planning in application scenarios.