Analyzing and Developing the Order Fulfillment Process in Make to Order Business

Abstract

Order fulfillment process is one of the key processes in the make to order manufacturing environment. The order fulfillment process usually includes order processing, manufacturing planning and shipping of goods. To complete these phases the order fulfillment process requires a lot of information. This means that the information flow and management need to be in order and the order fulfillment process should be integrated to previous phases where the information is processed. For this integration the process structure should be defined for the business.

This master’s thesis reviews literature that helps to understand the process structure that links to order fulfillment process in make to order business. On top of the process structure the information flow and information systems for improving order fulfillment process are investigated. The case study is done in make to order business that is part of a larger company. The case business provides consumable products to paper mills globally. These products are configured according to customer paper machine specifications. The case business has made organizational changes that created the process level organization for order fulfillment process. This created a need to analyze the order fulfillment process in the case business to see how it should be developed and streamlined. The order fulfillment process is analyzed based on the collected interview data. Support for the current state analysis gives benchmarking of three other business units in the target company. Comparison of these business units is made in product delivery strategy, order management process, system usage and identified problems. From this analysis the main challenges were identified in the target business.

The results can be divided to two parts. Firstly, the good practices for order fulfillment process in make-to-order companies are summarized to two main themes of process structure and information flow. The process structure creates a basis for operations that collect, and process data required for order generation and delivery. Process structure also defines the links between process. These links define what information each of the processes in the process structure need to provide to other process in the process structure. On top of the process structure the information flow is built. The information flow makes the data available to right roles at the right time through information technology system usage. This improves the transparency of the operations and opens the possibilities for measuring, development and optimization in the order fulfillment process.

The good practices were used to solve the main challenges that were identified. From this development propositions were made for the target business and roadmap generated for implementing these development propositions. The found good practices are applicable to make to order businesses and the roadmap offers a way to implement them in right order on different level of the business.