You're misunderstanding my meaning with pipeline: you're thinking it's just the CD part of the equation. I'm thinking about it as the whole software development and delivery process (planning, design, UX, dev, test, PR reviews, CD, etc), which can be standardised (and indeed some certifications require it to be standardised). In that context, even when the development pipeline follows a standardised process, most of it's nothing like a factory: just the CD part, as you've correctly identified. Because the output of CD will be, for mature software, 99+% similar to the output of the previous build - it is definitely somewhat analagous to manufacturing, although if you think about adding tests, etc., the process evolves a lot more often and rapidly than many production lines.