The customer order decoupling point in empirical operations and supply chain management research: a systematic literature review and framework

Abstract

The customer order decoupling point (CODP) is the point in the supply chain where the product is linked to a customer order and is, by definition, the last stock point along the supply chain. The CODP decouples the upstream operations that are made to stock from the downstream operations that are triggered by customer orders. We employed a systematic literature review of the empirical research on the CODP in operations and supply chain management (OSCM). We identified 40 articles that explicitly contributed with empirical results concerning factors and characteristics for the operations upstream versus downstream of the CODP, or between make-to-stock (MTS) and make-to-order (MTO) operations. The 32 factors that were identified were grouped into four main categories: market and product factors, operations factors, supply chain factors, and performance measures. Based on the content analysis, we propose a framework that provides a holistic view on the CODP. The distinctive differences between MTS and MTO characteristics strongly suggest that there are two configurations: one for the upstream MTS-type operations and another for the downstream MTO-type operations. We discuss implications for research and practice and provide suggestions for further research.