Explain why very high utilization increases delay and instability in variable work systems.
The move: treat utilization as a control dial, not a badge of honor. Why the final 10% hurts more than the first 80% At moderate load, variability is manageable because the system has room to recover. At extreme load, every interruption steals time from already committed work, so waiting lines form quickly. The team may look productive locally while overall lead time stretches. Separate busy from throughput A team can be fully occupied and still fail to move the system faster. If the real bottleneck is elsewhere, extra utilization simply produces more work-in-progress waiting in line. The throughput question is…
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