The fallback plan · The lead time · Element

The shortening

What could be done in advance to reduce it.

The part

What it is

Pre-agreeing a contract, holding a conversation with the alternative supplier, keeping an option open at small cost.

A small standing cost frequently converts an unusable fallback into a usable one.

The smallest level

The attributes it carries

Each attribute is one of the framework’s shared types. What a date is, and how it is written, is defined once for the whole model — the note here says what it means in this particular place.