The machine requirements problem

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the machine requirements problem. The problem is described and a classification scheme is presented to categorize alternative approaches which might be used to formulate and analyse the problem. In addition, this article discusses the basic analytical approaches to the problem which have been reported in the literature, and relates these approaches to the problem's classification scheme. Conclusions are drawn us to strengths and weaknesses of the approaches, as well as to potential research directions