As a vital decision-making progress, hybrid flow shops (HFS) are common manufacturing environments in which a set of n jobs are to be processed in a series of m stages optimizing a given objective function. Focusing on its complex nature, this paper presents a literature review on HFS scheduling problem, classifies the various type of the problem, lists reasonable simplification, analyses some common solve methods including exact algorithms and approximation algorithms, and concludes with suggestion for future research by aim at deficiency of current phase.