Optimization of fuel assembly exchange machine movements during periodic refueling outage is discussed. The fuel assembly movements during a fuel shuffling were examined, and it was found that the fuel assembly movements consist of two different movement sequences; one is the“PATH,”which begins at a discharged fuel assembly and terminates at a fresh fuel assembly, and the other is the“LOOP,”where fuel assemblies circulate in the core. It is also shown that fuel-loading patterns during the fuel shuffling can be expressed by the state of each PATH, which is the number of elements already accomplished in the PATH actions. Based on this fact, a scheme to determine a fuel assembly movement sequence within the constraint was formulated using the artificial intelligence language PROLOG. An additional merit to the scheme is that it can simultaneously evaluate fuel assembly movement, due to the control rods and local power range monitor exchange, in addition to normal fuel shuffling. Fuel assembly movements, for fuel shuffling in a 540-MW(electric) boiling water reactor power plant, were calculated by this scheme. It is also shown that the true optimization to minimize the fuel exchange machine movements would be costly to obtain due to the number of alternatives that would need to be evaluated. However, a method to obtain a quasi-optimum solution is suggested.