Inspect the right state
Trace the intermediate in the production explorer until the upstream inputs are visible. Inspect which of those goods you already have, which need purchase and which consume capacity reserved for another output. Read current market offers rather than the archive reference values.
Make the decision
Keep ingredient spending, worker time and any transport cost in separate lines. Buying can release workshop capacity but depend on market availability; crafting can use local stock but occupy storage and workers. No universal profitability ranking follows from these tradeoffs.
Verify the result
Test the chosen plan on one batch and compare actual inventory movement with the planned stages. If a scarce input is unavailable, repeat the comparison using the actual intermediate quote instead of assuming replenishment on a fixed schedule.