Does anyone have any idea how long it should take to have an NPC organization create mundane (but expensive) bespoke gear? Both the standard and alternate (unchained) crafting rules are designed for PCs to roll to see how much progress they make every week / day of work of work, and then repeat until finished.
I'm giving my party priority access to the weapon & armor smiths of Janderhoff as a reward. It's easy to determine how long it'll take to create the magic effects of their desired items (glamered and animated), but short of actually coming up with NPC stats for the best craftsdwarf in Janderhoff and rolling a bunch (maybe a lot) of daily checks, I can't see any way to determine how many days it should take to produce, for example, a mithral kikko.
Using the alternate crafting rules from unchained, and assuming that I have the best smith in Janderhoff have a +17 craft skill, +2 for mwk tools, two Large City maximum skill trained labourers in a masterwork workspace taking 10 every day on aid another, He'll take 10 for a 35 craft each day.
Complexity Craft DC Base gp / Day gp / day @ 35
E Simple DC 5 5 sp 3.5 gp
Simple DC 10 1 gp 6 gp
Normal DC 15 2 gp 10 gp
Complex DC 20 4 gp 16 gp
Intricate DC 25 8 gp 24 gp
V Intricate DC 30 16 gp 32 gp
E Intricate DC 35 32 gp 32 gp
Now, this isn't bad for an Animated Heavy Steel Shield - The mwk shield is only worth 170 gp, and is only "Complex", so it'll get done in 2 days, 5 hours, and take four days to enchant.
But a glamoured mithral kikko is way longer, despite not being that much more expensive. A mithral kikko is Intricate, and worth 4250, so at 24 gp a day, it's going to take 44 days, 2 hours, 10 minutes to forge, and then a mere 2.7 days (2 days, 5 hours, 36 minutes) to enchant - 50 days total!
I think that using "easily crafted" mithral would cut that crafting time in half, but it would also double the material cost; surely the price of the finished good can't stay the same if the raw material is twice as expensive?
You're not the first to have noticed problems with the craft skill rules. One 3rd party set of rules is here. The times are closer to the magic item crafting rules (which is to say crazy fast) and a few other problems are fixed too.