ATO,PTO,MTO,CTO

Manufacturing Methods

• ATO
• PTO
• MTO
• CTO

Assemble to Order (ATO)

These are the standard products and are often configured by customers.Sub assemblies are manufactured prior to receiving the order and when the order is received ,the sub assemblies are assembled to make the finished products For Example : Automobiles , Computers

Pick to Order (PTO)

A Variety of shippable components are stocked. Customers order kits or collection of these parts under a single item number. Kits can be predefined or configured by the customer during the order entry process.

There is no additional value added after the customer order. For Example : Computer System (CPU , Monitor , and Printer)

Make to Order (MTO)

Standard Products are designed and published in catalogs. The actual product is built on receipt of the customer order.Customer might be able to choose certain characteristics optionally. An example of this would be a machine building.

Configure To Order (CTO)

This is when manufacturer has few configurable base models. An example is heavy equipment manufacturers which usually have several base tractor & truck models, but where customers can choose configuration option for each order, like air con, radio, bucket size, boom length, etc. Without CTO software, the number of combination of finished good stored in the system will be ridicilously high. Using CTO software, manufacturer only has to store a master base (or generic) item along with its generic BOM & routing, plus some configuration question which adds or remove parts/operations. When customer books an order, the sales rep asks series of questions (would you like air con? which bucket size would you like? and so on) then records the answers in the system. The CTO software then automatically create a new product variant specifically according to the configuration required by the customer. The product variant will automatically have customized BOM & routing per customer request as well, so that when the production is executed in the shop floor, correct materials & routings are followed