Tools and practices for tactical delivery date setting in engineer-to-order environments: a systematic literature review

The research interest in topics related to production and supply chain planning control engineer-to-order (ETO) environments has grown significantly over the last three decades. One of strategically important challenging decision areas for ETO is estimating quoting feasible delivery dates assessing feasibility customer-imposed dates, collectively referred as date setting (DDS). While DDS received substantial attention literature, supporting process companies fragmented – lacking clear guidelines industrial practice gaps guide future on topic. To address these issues, this study systematically reviews literature environments, identifying tools practices proposed extant proposing an agenda research. Findings suggest that most focused developing decision-support tactical capacity support reliable DDS, however, with a noticeable lack alignment needs environments. Furthermore, despite previous emphasising importance high levels coordination formalisation process, there practitioners achieving formalisation.