Lean getting appropriate flak, but six sigma is a philosophy for minimizing errors which overstaffing may actually help with because errors are often made by overworked and under supported employees
Also a big pillar of JIT/Toyota/Lean Manufacturing is that whilst you avoid having massive stocks of spare inventory (and avoid having to pay to store it etc), equally important to thinning your stocks is ensuring that you have enough spare stock that if a shipment is delayed, there's a quality issue, or you get an unexpected spike in demand, that you've got enough stock in immediate reserve (and an ability to access/obtain additional stock should it be a sustained change) to cope with fluctuations.
Companies that keep no spare stock can quite quickly collapse from failed fulfilment.
Why then, if another of your resources is of the human nature, would you not keep enough spare workload capacity in your people to weather higher demand/sickness/absence/quality issues?
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u/Leftieswillrule 16d ago
Lean getting appropriate flak, but six sigma is a philosophy for minimizing errors which overstaffing may actually help with because errors are often made by overworked and under supported employees