As a guide for developing additions to a line of machine tools a model of the ″performance space″ of competing brands was developed using catalogue specifications of 25 performance related characteristics. A two-stage analytical process, utilizing cluster analysis and non-metric multidimensional scaling, yielded five- and three-dimensional solutions, in which the axes of the spaces were summary measures of performance. Brands which had similar performance characteristics, in the sense that they could perform similar types of operations, were located ″close″ to each other in these spaces. The techniques illustrated are quite general and can be applied in a variety of situations, even if (interval scaled) ″measured″ performance data are not available.