Mto Model Vs CTO Model

Since it was started30years ago, EMS(Electronics Manufacturing Service) industry has been developing itself from the labor-intensive industry into technology-intensive industry gradually. What’s more is the leading companies within this industry are no longer just involved in the volume manufacturing of PCBA(Printed Circuit Boards Assembly) which is a MTO (Manufacturing to Order) model, while they started getting hands on a more complex system level manufacturing which is the CTO (Configure to Order) model. As one of the earliest projects that got into CTO model successfully, Project Tof company F stands up as a very typical project due to the complexity of the products its manufacturing as well as the pure CTO model it’s in.The account started from the manufacturing of the simple PCBAs6years ago when the companies T and F started their strategic partnership in China. That was followed by the complex PCBA manufacturing then the account moved into EM (Electro-mechanical) manufacturing and that success finally won it the business of the complex Configure To Order System Level integration. This whole process has been full of challenges which involve a series of conversion from MTO model to CTO model that includes but not limited to: Customer Demand Management, Materials Planning and Procurement, Supply Chain Management, Cost Model and Production Management etc.The new operation model and successful experiences that T account got during this transfer may be shared and referenced by other EMS companies that are starting getting involved into CTO model while at the same time there’re also some challenges and issues that are not solved and waiting for more experts in EMS industry to research and find solutions. The purpose of this paper is to compare the MTO model and CTO model on T account thus to share the experiences in terms of Customer Demand Management, Materials Planning and Procurement, Supply Chain management, Cost Model and Production Management etc, and at the same time to initiate more discussion on those unsolved issues in this transfer process.