Hoekstra and Romme (1992) distinguish five possible positions of a decoupling point
(DP) as depicted in Figure 7. These range from having inventory in all stages of the supply
chain and delivering customer orders from stock (DP 1), to having practically no inventory in
the supply chain and starting to assemble (make) a product when the order comes in (DP 5).
Hoekstra and Romme regard the CODP as important for several reasons: