lf a Laval AB is a global manufacturer of, for example, heat exchangers. A heat exchanger
is made from a number of standard components made to stock. When a customer order is
received, standard components are withdrawn from the component store, adjusted and assembled
to a finished customer-specific heat exchanger. The customer order decoupling point is
consequently at the component stock. The delivery time from customer order to delivery equals
the assembly time from withdrawal of standard components to finished product.
Manufacturing of heat exchangers is described in the figure below. Triangles illustrate stock
points and circles illustrate production operations.