The routine measurement of the cell size distribution of a Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cell population during a repeated batch process enables the predetermination of exponential growth even 24 h before the population enters the log phase, due to a short but significantly increased cell size during the lag phase. A prolongation of the stationary phase causes to progressive limitation in asparagine, serine, and ethanolamine. Such extended limitation influences the du ration of the following lag phase and obviously induces a synchronization of the cell population that can be monitored easily by a fast cell size analyzing technique.