This volume comprises the Proceedings of the Tenth National Conference on Manufacturing Research held at the University of Technology, Loughborough, UK, in September 1994, the latest in a series of meetings first convened in 1985, and the first to be published by Taylor & Francis Ltd.; Edited by Keith Case and Steven Newman, the Conference Chairs, the book contains R. H. Weston's keynote address, "Requirements and Trends in Manufacturing Systems," and over 140 contributions, which together represent the leading edge, state-of-the-art knowledge in the area of manufacturing and production engineering and management. The contributions are organized by theme: process planning; systems integration and modelling; simulation and scheduling; concurrent engineering and design; process control; and inspection; and thus demonstrate the enormous range of topics that manufacturing research embraces and their relevance to improving current industrial practice.