Utilisation hit 92%. That’s when the lead time doubled.

Pushing a delivery team from 80% to 92% busy looks like free capacity on the P&L. Queueing behaviour says it is the most expensive twelve points you will ever buy.

By Steve 5 min read
Abstract bridge artwork for Utilisation hit 92%. That’s when the lead time doubled.

A delivery team that was quoting three weeks is now quoting six. Nothing has broken. Nobody has left. Volumes are up perhaps a tenth. The utilisation report, which the business has been trying to move for two years, finally reads in the high eighties. And customers have started asking why everything takes so long. This is not a discipline problem, and usually not a talent problem. It is arithmetic. The relationship between how busy a team is and how long work waits is not a straight line, and most operating…

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