There is a weird duality when analyzing this... On the one hand, I think factory assembly lines are just a high bar to clear as as metaphor for internal processes. Almost no business actually runs a super organized backend workflow; there is always "I thought you followed up with the customer" "I thought you did"
On the other hand if the email server is down that's just as big a problem for any biz as if customer facing product was not working so some workflow things are already treated as production tier priority
On the other hand if the email server is down that's just as big a problem for any biz as if customer facing product was not working so some workflow things are already treated as production tier priority