International Business Machines Corporation

David Da-Wei Yao

Markus Ettl

Feng Cheng

Grace Yuh-Jiun Lin

A manufacturing process is migrated from an existing operation to a configure-to-order (CTO) system. As the CTO operation will eliminate the 'machine-type model' (MTM) inventory of the existing operation, the emphasis is shifted to the components, or 'building blocks', which will still follow the build-to-stock scheme, due to their long leadtimes, and hence still require inventory. The solution involves an inventory-service trade-off of the new CTO system, resulting in performance gains, in terms of reduced inventory cost and increased service level. Other benefits include better forecast accuracy through parts commonality and risk-pooling, and increased customer demand, as orders will no longer be confined within a restricted set of pre-configured MTMs.

Large inventory-service optimization in configure-to-order systems

A manufacturing process is migrated from an existing operation to a configure-to-order (CTO) system. As the CTO operation will eliminate the 'machine-type model' (MTM) inventory of the existing operation, the emphasis is shifted to the components, or 'building blocks', which will still follow the build-to-stock scheme, due to their long leadtimes, and hence still require inventory. The solution involves an inventory-service trade-off of the new CTO system, resulting in performance gains, in terms of reduced inventory cost and increased service level. Other benefits of the method include better forecast accuracy through parts commonality and risk-pooling, and increased customer demand, as orders will no longer be confined within a restricted set of pre-configured MTMs.

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Yorktown Heights, NY, United States of America

David Da-Wei Yao