ABSTRACT
Manufacturing to customer specifications means more resetting of the machines, different raw materials and/or auxiliary materials or different finishes to products. The more production to customer specifications takes place the earlier in the production or distribution process, the higher the costs. There are five different Customer Order Decoupling Points: production and consignment to stock, production to stock, assembly to order, manufacturing to order, and purchasing and manufacture to order. The order for the raw and auxiliary materials only goes out when the order has been placed by the customer. Adjusting the Customer Order Decoupling Point cannot take place just like that. This usually has great consequences for the whole enterprise, for example, in the areas of: delivery times, throughput timescosts, prices, adjusting machines, different quantities of stocks of end products, and raw materials and auxiliary materials.
