"________ is defined as the dispersal of production activities to locations that help a company achieve its cost-minimization or quality-maximization objectives for a good or service."
Outcome or production can also apply to manufactured products. For example, some companies call a group of goods that are making a production take place simultaneously.
Both of those are synonymous meanings. Essentially exactly, sometimes it refers a method of processing, or the eventual outcome of a stages of production.
