Make-to-order manufacturing means a product is produced after a customer order is confirmed, rather than built ahead against a forecast. This piece explains how to configure make-to-order manufacturing in Odoo.
What make-to-order means in Odoo terms
In make-to-order manufacturing, the trigger for production is a confirmed sales order. Nothing is built for that order until the order exists. Configuring make-to-order in Odoo means setting a product up so that demand for it, in particular a sales order, triggers its replenishment, and for a manufactured product, that replenishment is a manufacturing order. The result is that confirming a sales order for the product causes Odoo to create the manufacturing order to produce it.
The core of the configuration
The make-to-order behaviour comes from how the product is configured to be replenished. Odoo decides how to meet demand for a product based on the product's setup. A product can be configured so that it is replenished from stock against reordering rules, that is make-to-stock behaviour, or so that demand for it triggers its replenishment directly, that is make-to-order behaviour. For make-to-order manufacturing, the product is configured so that demand triggers replenishment, and because the product is manufactured, that replenishment is a manufacturing order built against the product's bill of materials.
This connection works because Odoo's Sales and Manufacturing applications are part of one system. The sales order is the demand; the configuration makes that demand trigger a manufacturing order; the BOM defines what the manufacturing order produces.
The prerequisites
For make-to-order manufacturing to be configured for a product, the basics have to be in place. The product needs an accurate bill of materials, since the triggered manufacturing order is built against it. If production is to be tracked by operation, it needs a routing. These are the same foundations any manufactured product needs; make-to-order adds the replenishment configuration on top.
Make-to-order down the BOM
A configuration decision worth thinking through is how far the make-to-order trigger reaches. When a sales order triggers a manufacturing order for the finished product, Odoo explodes the BOM for the components. For each component or sub-assembly, the manufacturer configures how it is supplied. A sub-assembly can itself be make-to-order, so the trigger cascades down and it is produced only when needed. Or components can be held in stock against reordering rules, so they are on hand when a make-to-order product is built. Configuring make-to-order well includes deciding, for the items down the BOM, which are themselves on-demand and which are stocked. This decision shapes the lead time the customer waits and the stock the manufacturer holds.
Make-to-order and lead time
A consequence of make-to-order to be conscious of when configuring it: because production starts only when the order is confirmed, the customer waits through the manufacturing lead time. Configuring make-to-order well includes being honest about that lead time and, often, holding the longer-lead-time components in stock so that only the final make-to-order production, not the component sourcing, is on the customer's clock. How the make-to-order trigger and the component stocking are configured together is what determines whether the customer's wait is reasonable.
The takeaway
Configuring make-to-order manufacturing in Odoo means setting a product up so that demand, a confirmed sales order, triggers its replenishment, which for a manufactured product is a manufacturing order built against its BOM. This works through Odoo's connected Sales and Manufacturing. The product needs its accurate BOM and routing as a foundation, and a key configuration decision is how far down the BOM the on-demand trigger reaches versus where components are stocked, which shapes the customer's lead time. For how we approach Odoo for manufacturers, see our manufacturing work.