Assemble-to-order means that a product is assembled from prefabricated components according to the customer’s individual requirements.
This enables quick and flexible adaptation to customer demand without long delivery times or high storage costs.
The prefabricated components are produced according to statistical forecasts and are only used for final assembly when required.
The logistical decoupling point for products manufactured in this way is therefore before assembly.

AtO enables a greater number of variants with significantly lower stock levels compared to stock production of the end products.
Warehousing costs are reduced as only standard components have to be stored at a lower stage of the value chain.
AtO is therefore always worth considering if similar products have a large number of variants.
In order to be able to deliver quickly with AtO compared to stocking the end products, flexible capacities may be required in assembly.
This is particularly the case if incoming orders fluctuate greatly over time.

Our tip:
To increase flexibility in assembly, it could make sense to keep frequently requested variants in stock as finished products, while other variants are only assembled to order.
If the system is cleverly leveled, the capacity gaps in the customer-order-related production of the less frequently requested variants can be used to rework the variants in stock.
An ABC/XYZ analysis of the end product variants can help to determine which end product variants should be stored as such and which should be assembled on a customer-order-related basis.