Operations management, as any type of management, is basically concerned with making decisions. Many of these decisions are related to customer demand and an important concept for understanding the underlying complexity is the customer order decoupling point (CODP). The CODP separates decisions made under certainty from those made under uncertainty about customer demand. Here, a brief background to the concept is presented and the CODP is defined. The paper also shows how the CODP can be used in a number of situations and applications; in the formulation of a manufacturing strategy, in the design of supply chains, and the use in a business processes context. In particular we investigate the application to settings where production and engineering activities are interlaced.