Build to Order
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"Made to Order" redirects here. For the television program, see Made to Order (television series).
Build to Order, often abbreviated as BTO and sometimes referred to as Made to Order (MTO), is a production approach products are built after a confirmed order is received for it. BTO is the oldest style of order fulfillment and is still the most appropriate approach used for highly customised or low-volume products.
A related idea is Engineer to Order (ETO), where a part of or the whole design is done after the order is received.
[edit] Overview
This approach is considered good for highly configured products, e.g. computer Servers, or for products where holding inventories is very expensive, e.g. aircraft.
Some firms build all their products to order while others build them to stock. Given the widespread proliferation of products, there are a number of manufacturers that take a hybrid approach, where some items are built to stock and others are built to order
