Make-to-order production

What it decides: for each phase of each order, in which plant, on which resource and when.

How it is modelled

Piece	In this case
Resources	Machines, booths and workstations, each in its plant and with its capacity
Processes	The route of each product: phases, valid resources, durations (often formulas over the product’s properties)
Orders	Orders with lines, quantity and due date
Objective	On-time delivery, with weights per customer or order
Constraints	Order of phases and minimum waits; same plant per order when the process requires it

The usual flow

1. A new order comes in.
2. A proposal is generated that starts from the current plan, with what has already started fixed.
3. The proposal shows when each part ships, which orders move and what it costs in penalties.
4. If it is convincing, it is accepted; if the data changes before then, it becomes outdated.

What you see

• Deliveries per week, with each order on time, less than a week late or later.
• Load on each plant and phase per week, with the bottlenecks.
• The current plan against the proposal, on a Gantt chart.

Data to get started

Products and routes, plants and resources with their capacity, orders with dates and the plan in progress. From Excel or from the ERP.