The effect on the business of a build-up of work that occurs as the result of a system or process being unavailable for an unacceptable period. A situation whereby a backlog of work requires more time to action than is available through normal working patterns. Note: In extreme circumstances, the backlog may become so marked that the backlog cannot be cleared and this is referred to as the Backlog Trap.However, backlogs are often deliberately built into manufacturing workflows in order to allow a unit to continue working productively even if the assembly line is interrupted. One could view such an interruption as a "mini-outage." Even in a non-manufacturing environment, during a true BCM outage a backlog could allow isolated units to continue adding value to work in process even if its inflows and outflows were offline. So part of the BCM analyst's job could be to design backlogs in advance where none existed before in order to minimize loss of value