Business-to-Business (B2B) relationships, such as between a manufacturer and a customer,are increasingly important during the Customer Enquiry Management (CEM) process,particularly so for non-Make-To-Stock (non-MTS) companies operating in industrial markets.Few empirical studies have explored...

Purpose – The customer enquiry management (CEM) process is of strategic importance in engineer-to-order contexts but existing literature does not adequately describe how firms support delivery date setting and order acceptance decisions in practice. This paper seeks to explore how and why the...

Many vendors of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems claim that their products are widely applicable - configurable to meet the needs of any business, whatever the product or service offering. However, producers of high-variety and bespoke products, such as Make-To-Order (MTO) companies,...

The Workload Control (WLC) concept is one of few Production Planning & Control (PPC) solutions appropriate for Make-To-Order (MTO) companies yet its successful implementation is an enduring challenge. Most implementations reported are in large organisations yet it has been argued that WLC is...

The paper reviews 'classic approaches' to Production Planning and Control (PPC) such as Kanban, Workload Control (WLC) and Theory of Constrains (TOC), and elaborates upon the emergence of techniques such as Constant Work in Progress (CONWIP), Paired cell Overlapping Loops of Cards with...

Many vendors of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems claim that their products are widely applicable - configurable to meet the needs of any business, whatever the product or service offering. However, producers of high-variety and bespoke products, such as Make-To-Order (MTO) companies,...

The Workload Control (WLC) concept is one of few Production Planning & Control (PPC) solutions appropriate for Make-To-Order (MTO) companies yet its successful implementation is an enduring challenge. Most implementations reported are in large organisations yet it has been argued that WLC is...

The paper reviews 'classic approaches' to Production Planning and Control (PPC) such as Kanban, Workload Control (WLC) and Theory of Constrains (TOC), and elaborates upon the emergence of techniques such as Constant Work in Progress (CONWIP), Paired cell Overlapping Loops of Cards with...

The Workload Control (WLC) concept is one of few Production Planning and Control (PPC) solutions appropriate for Make-To-Order (MTO) companies yet its successful implementation is an enduring challenge. Most implementations reported are in large organisations yet it has been argued that WLC is...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present an empirical study of supply chain flexibility, asking: what specific inter-firm practices are used to achieve increased flexibility in buyer-supplier pairs and in the wider supply chain or network, and how do these practices and effects...