Strategic inventory holding to allow the estimation of earlier due dates in make-to-order production

In an advanced planning and scheduling environment, manufacturers are obliged to estimate due dates for customer orders and satisfy their requirements, including due dates, upon receiving orders. Earlier due dates are especially important in order to obtain orders under increasingly competitive conditions. The present paper discusses a method for estimating earlier due dates in make-to-order production, assuming that a portion of the parts used to build final products can be standardized and the number of customer orders in a certain period varies according to the autocorrelation time series. In the present paper, a method is proposed for deciding the production timing and volume of production for semi-finished products in advance of the future demand, which is linked with a scheduling algorithm for estimating due dates of newly arrived customer orders and updating the overall production schedule.