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Industrial Engineering & Manufacturing vocabulary · Production Planning and Control

Make-to-order

Meaning in industrial engineering & manufacturing, with examples

adjectiveCommon term

In industrial engineering & manufacturing, make-to-order means: Describing a production strategy in which products are made only after a customer places an order, rather than in advance for stock. Shortened to MTO.

In Turkish: siparişe göre üretim, siparişe dayalı üretim

How it is used

Contrasted with make-to-stock (MTS), where products are made in advance from a forecast, and with engineer-to-order (ETO) and assemble-to-order (ATO). Make-to-order means little finished goods stock but longer lead times for customers.

Example sentences

  1. Our industrial ovens are make-to-order, so the lead time is about ten weeks.

  2. We moved the low-volume models to make-to-order to cut finished goods stock.

Common collocations

  • make-to-order production
  • make-to-stock
  • assemble-to-order
  • engineer-to-order
  • MTO business
  • finished goodsProducts that are completely made, checked and ready to be shipped or sold to customers.
  • lead timeThe total time between the start of a process, such as receiving an order, and its end, such as delivering the product to the customer.
  • demand forecastAn estimate of how many units customers will order in future periods, based on past sales, customer plans and market information.
  • master production scheduleA plan that states how many of each finished product will be made in each period, usually week by week, and drives material and capacity planning. Shortened to MPS.

More terms: Production Planning and Control

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