Recovery speed is decided long before a tool fails: by records, by pre-agreed substitution rules and by buffer placed where variability sits, not at the end of the plan.
Most factories sell time they do not control. A reservation names a window on a named operation, with a volume floor and an owner, which is what separates it from a priority agreement.
Capacity is not a machine count or a floor area. In a mixed-work shop the binding constraint moves between operations, and changeovers consume the time that nameplate figures assume is productive.
A small order is not delayed because it is small. It waits because it fits the schedule badly: the material, tooling, drawing release and setup window rarely line up at once, and a planner sorts by fit rather than by arrival date.
A quotation is a response to information. The drawing, acceptance criteria, material, volume and service conditions that turn a guess into a price that holds.
Casting is a tooling based route, and it rewards complexity, volume and stability. Four conditions that turn a casting programme into an expensive way to make a shape.
