Business development entails tasks and processes to develop and implement growth opportunities within and between organizations. It is a subset of the fields of business, commerce and organizational theory. Business development is the creation of long-term value for an organization from and for customers, markets, and relationships (from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_development).  Understanding  the needs of current and future customers should be the baseline for business development. There are two main dimensions of business development, exploitation of current resources (continuous improvements) and exploration of new value (disruptive business models).

See also the section dedicated to Business model aspects.

Flexibility in manufacturing means the ability to deal with slightly or greatly mixed parts, to allow variation in parts assembly and variations in process sequence, change the production volume and change the design of certain product being manufactured.

(from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexible_manufacturing_system)

A lead time is the latency between the initiation and execution of a process. For example, the lead time between the placement of an order and delivery of a new car from a manufacturer (from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_time)

In systems engineering, dependability is a measure of a system's availability, reliability, and its maintainability, and maintenance support performance, and, in some cases, other characteristics such as durability, safety and security. In software engineering, dependability is the ability to provide services that can defensibly be trusted within a time-period. This may also encompass mechanisms designed to increase and maintain the dependability of a system or software. (from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dependability)

Productivity describes various measures of the efficiency of production. A productivity measure is expressed as the ratio of output to inputs used in a production process, i.e. output per unit of input. Productivity is a crucial factor in production performance of firms and nations. (from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Productivity)

Optimisation challenges must be faced along the entire supply chain or value network, involving OEMs, components suppliers, service providers and SMEs. The transparency of customer requirements and value within the value chain is an important driver for optimisation.