This paper proposes an effective approach based on binary coding Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) to identify the switching operation plan for feeder reconfiguration. The proposed method considers the advantages and disadvantages of existing particle swarm optimization method and redefined the operators of PSO algorithm to fit the application field of distribution systems. Shift operator is proposed to construct the binary coding particle swarm optimization for feeder reconfiguration. A typical distribution system of Taiwan Power Company is used in this paper to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. The test results show that the proposed method can apply to feeder reconfiguration problems more effectively and stably than existing method.