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The development of CRAG's robot technology data base, ADR‐l Expert System, is described and findings from the data base discussed. Relevant characteristics of available robots including accuracy, load carrying capacity, and application capability are reviewed and the role of data base systems for this purpose discussed.

Valuable concepts for flexible sheet metal assembly have come out of a student project which is now in its fourth year at the Cranfield Institute of Technology.

MANY WRITERS on computers — and not only those who try to explain their mysteries in the popular Press — have been unable to avoid using the obvious punning of fiche and chips. None that we have met so far has posed the equally obvious question: will they feed the world or will they leave it hungry?

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.

This article addresses the lack of formal design guidance that supports flexibility within the architectural and engineered systems of manufacturing facilities through the development of a taxonomy and associated terminology.

This research performed a comparative analysis of 15 manufacturing facilities located both within the United States (73 percent of cases) and internationally (27 percent of cases). These case studies provided details on how and where flexibility was incorporated into the design of a manufacturing facility. Specific consideration was given to the primary design features that enabled a decoupling of the facility from the manufacturing process. These design features were then clustered to identify main design strategies that enable flexibility.

By grouping the design features together and creating a common vocabulary, three coherent design approaches for flexible facilities were identified, each having a different potential for responding to short-term and long-term changes. These include general purpose, scalable, and dedicated facilities.

By delineating three high-level strategies for early flexible facility design, this research synthesizes a conceptual understanding of flexibility with practical and implementable designs. This synthesis provides an incremental advance to a complex challenge for researchers. It also provides decision support to design teams by aiding in project definition, when flexibility is desirable. This research is primarily limited by the number of cases reviewed. With more cases, additional facility design strategies may be identified.

The findings in this research allow for a basic understanding of how a flexible facility can be designed with only limited or vague information about the product and manufacturing processes contained within. The development of terminology associated with each facility design strategy provides standardization for the discussion and implementation of flexibility early in the design process. In doing so, flexible designs become easier to create and more efficient to implement.

This research provides the first synthesized approach for considering flexible facility design strategies within the manufacturing sector.