AbstractAssignment of machines to locations to minimize work-in- process (WIP) backtrack travel distance is one of the special cases of general quadratic assignment problems (QAP). The need is to assign N machines to N available sites so that the total WIP backtrack cost is minimized. Even though the literature on QAP is packed with procedures that venture to find an optimal solution that minimizes the total distance travelled, as of now, very few researchers have addressed the backtrack travel distance. Existing methods are realistically unsolvable for large value of N. This paper is a modification of an existing model that was based on a cut approach. The corresponding mathematical model is derived, and an efficient heuristic procedure for assigning machines to sites on a linear track by minimizing the total backtrack travel distance is presented. Results showing the performance of the heuristic is illustrated. In most of the test problems the heuristic produced optimal solutions.