Make To Assemble - MTA

A manufacturing production strategy where a company stocks the basic components of a product based on demand forecasts, but does not assemble them until the customer places an order. This allows for order customization. MTA production is basically a hybrid of two other major types of manufacturing production strategies: make to stock (MTS) and make to order (MTO).

With MTS, businesses base their production on demand forecasts and final products are assembled before customers have ordered them. Customers can thus get items quickly, but only if the correct quantities have been manufactured, and businesses risk overproduction. At the opposite end of the spectrum, MTO creates items to customer specifications after they are ordered, so it is sometimes a slow process. The MTA production strategy is not as flexible for businesses as the MTO strategy, but it allows customers to get their orders sooner.