Discrete Manufacturing

Discrete manufacturing is typically characterized by these conditions:

• Work orders produce a specific quantity of a single item for a specific completion date.

• Routing instructions are a series of independent operations.

• Components can be manually issued with the release of the work order, backflushed at the completion of the work order, or both.

Discrete manufacturing is most often used in these manufacturing environments:

• Make-to-stock, using either a highly repetitive or process order-based system.

• Any of the to-order strategies, such as make-to-order, assemble-to-order, or engineer-to-order.

• The one-off or job shop environment

Discrete manufacturing is used to produce items such as:

• Cars

• Furniture

• Electronics

• Airplanes