This paper considers a joint optimization problem of production and preventive maintenance for a serial production system subject to equipment degradations constrains.The system processes different job types to meet different customer demands. First, a joint optimization problem domain of the system with equipment degradations is formally introduced. A mathematic programming model is established with an optimal bi-objective function of minimizing the system makespan and preventive maintenance cost. Together with introducing an artificial bee colony theory, a novel bi-objective artificial bee colony algorithm is developed to pursue short production time and low preventive maintenance cost. To guarantee the algorithm convergence performance, a sorting rule of non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGAII) is introduced into the proposed algorithm. Local Tabu search technology and probability criteria are involved. Finally, numerous experiments are conducted to evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm. In comparison with the well-known NSGAII, the proposed algorithm performs significantly better in terms of finding the spread compromise solutions.