ABSTRACT
Introduction The frame of reference for this paper is manufacturing industry. For simplicity, we
define two categories of problems for the allocation of functions - the major facility (e.g. a new process line), and the cell (e.g. the reconstruction of a manufacturing cell). We address the former of these two problems, which represents a step-change in the organisation’s operations; the latter problem, the gradual, incremental improvement to established processes, has been addressed by many authors (e.g. Meister and Rabideau 1965; Dbring 1976; Kantowitz and Sorkin 1987; Mital et al. 1994a; Mital et al. 1994b).
