A lead time is the latency (delay) 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 may be anywhere from 2 weeks to 6 months. In industry, lead time reduction
is an important part of lean manufacturing.
In commerce, time to market (TTM) is the length of time it takes from a product being
conceived until its being available for sale. TTM is important in industries where products
are outmoded quickly. A common assumption is that TTM matters most for first-of-a-kind
products, but actually the leader often has the luxury of time, while the clock is clearly
running for the followers.

Operating costs are the expenses which are related to the operation of a business, or to
the operation of a device, component, piece of equipment or facility. They are the cost of
resources used by an organization just to maintain its existence.
Customer expectations are perceived-value that customers seek from the purchase of
goods or services. The expectations should be realistic and should not exceed
expectations. In addition, customer expectations are a key factor behind customer
satisfaction.
In business, outsourcing is the contracting out of a business process to a third-party. The
term "outsourcing" became popular in the United States near the turn of the 21st century.
Outsourcing sometimes involves transferring employees and assets from one firm to
another, but not always.
[1]
Outsourcing is also used to describe the practice of handing over
control of public services to for-profit corporations.
[2]

Outsourcing includes both foreign and domestic contracting,
[3]
and sometimes
includes offshoring or relocating a business function to another country.
[4]
Financial savings
from lower international labor rates is a big motivation for outsourcing/offshoring.
The opposite of outsourcing is called insourcing, which entails bringing processes handled
by third-party firms in-house, and is sometimes accomplished via vertical integration.
However, a business can provide a contract service to another business without
necessarily insourcing that business process.

Performance measurement is the process of collecting, analyzing and/or reporting
information regarding the performance of an individual, group, organization, system or
component. It can involve studying processes/strategies within organizations, or
studying engineering processes/parameters/phenomena, to see whether output are in line
with what was intended or should have been achieved.