The formation of manufacturing batches, given arriving orders, is a general problem in practice. In essence, it constitutes a optimization problem. The goal for this problem however, may differ from perspective. Most commonly this problem is viewed from a cost-based perspective, where minimizing costs is the goal. Other views can include minimizing overall batch lead times or the deviation from an optimal batch size derived from an operational performance perspective. This paper presents and compares these different approaches to this problem. Starting from a basic model, extensions will be proposed that incorporate operational performance measures as well. Both an integer programming model, and an dynamic programming model are discussed.