When does a workaround stop being a workaround and become the process?

Something I’ve been thinking about after a few conversations here this week.

In operations, workarounds aren’t necessarily bad.

Sometimes they’re exactly what you need.

Material doesn’t show up. Someone finds another supplier.

The system is wrong. Someone figures out how to get the order through.

A handoff fails. Someone steps in and keeps things moving.

That’s operations.

But what happens when the same workaround keeps happening?

If receiving routinely corrects purchasing errors, or the warehouse constantly compensates for bad inventory data, eventually the workaround starts looking a lot like the actual process.

So where do you draw the line?

When does a recurring exception become evidence that the process itself needs to change?

Is it frequency? Cost? Risk? The amount of judgment required?

Or can one occurrence be enough if it exposes a structural gap?

I’m curious how other supply chain people think about it.