Simulation is frequently used in design of manufacturing systems. Trad
itionally it is used to design individual production shops or cells, b
ut manufacturers are becoming aware that the major gains in competitiv
eness made necessary by the growing challenge of global markets, are a
vailable only from integrated design of entire factories. In this cont
ext simulation models become unwiedly. Meanwhile metamodelling techniq
ues have been maturing, and may provide a more versatile extension to
simulation, and deeper insight into modelled systems. Further, the rel
ative computational simplicity of metamodels offers the prospect of pr
actically modelling more extensive systems. This paper reviews the pub
lished development of metamodelling techniques, with particular emphas
is on their relevance to manufacturing.