Optimising a system for expected conditions makes it fragile to conditions outside them.
Carlson and Doyle's term. The mechanism is that optimisation spends the margin: a supply chain tuned for cost has no slack, which is exactly what absorbs an unexpected disruption.
In practice
- An airline that cuts turnarounds to the minute runs to schedule all summer and loses a day's flying to one thunderstorm.
- A hospital optimised for bed occupancy has no capacity for a bad week, and a bad week arrives annually.
- Subject
- Design & Systems
- Essay
- Why systems behave against intuition