Originally Posted by Pontius Navigator
The trick is to maintain capability and the ability to expand and take a capability holiday where possible.
That is, of course, very true. Rather like "just enough, just in time" logistics, though, it can be a fine line between it going right or horribly wrong. Also, do we really know how long it takes to re-acquire a gapped capability?
Taking the logistics parallel further, material supply teaches a useful lesson. Forgive me for using a Naval supply analogue here; the first casualty of a fund shortage is Safety Stock. That loses the ability to cope with demand fluctuations and it is a one off saving. Should activity then increase, that saving has to be recovered and reinvested in the hope that the provisioning lead time can be made short enough. The funds are hard won back and the original supply source may likely have reduced its capacity. My simple loggie brain draws similarities between that and trained bodies and available, capable machines.