Manifold

Manifold, a.k.a. in-line splitting / merging refers to a type building style where splitters or mergers are aligned in a straight line, usually parallel to the arrangement of buildings. This allows compact building space and easier expansion.

Belt manifold

 * Due to the Splitter's mechanism, the machines nearer to the source will fill up faster and starts running, the machines at the end of the line will have to wait for the resource to fill up preceding machines first before receiving its input resource.
 * If one output of a splitter is saturated with items, all the remaining items will be automatically overflow to the remaining connected outputs.
 * Same applies to output. The output from the nearest machine will be used first. If the output belt is saturated, the last machine can take a long time to be emptied.
 * Given enough time, all machines in the manifold will be running at 100%, providing the input and output items rates are sufficient and the item speed is not limited by the belt.
 * If the belt speed is limited, consider using 'Injected Manifold' where supplementary supply belt is merged somewhere at the middle.

Pipe header
A pipe manifold, a.k.a pipe header, is a kind of arrangement where a 'main' pipe is connected to a series of secondary pipes. It can serve either as a fluid distributor or a fluid collector. In Satisfactory, this can be constructed by chaining a series of Pipeline Cross Junctions connected with Pipelines.

A pipe header works with the following principles:
 * The total fluid input must be equal to the total fluid output (conservation of fluid flow)
 * No single segment of pipeline can exceed the flow rate of 300.

External Link

 * https://satisfactory.greeny.dev/machine-fill A calculator for calculating machine fill time in a manifold.
 * https://www.reddit.com/r/SatisfactoryGame/comments/btexf7/satisfactory_saturdays_2_balancers_vs_manifolds/ Detailed article about balancers vs manifolds.