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There are various standard approaches to arranging machines in a manufacturing plant. The most recent is group technology (GT), which was proposed in the UK by Burbridge in the 70s. The aim is to overcome the problems of batch and job-shop manufacturing, namely high product variety and small lot sizes. This is done by grouping products into families, and assigning each family to a group of machines, which, together with the appropriate material handling equipment, form a cell: hence, cellular manufacturing.

The first question then, if this approach is to be adopted, is to decide how the products are to be grouped into families so that they can be fully processed within a cell. This is the cell formation part of the cell design problem. In a series of five chapters it is fascinating to see how a wide range of OR techniques are applied to this problem. When the only knowledge is whether a part is processed on a …