High WIP and high utilization can reduce throughput.

• A. Throughput increases
• B. Throughput remains the same
• C. Throughput becomes unpredictable
• D. Throughput decreases

Answer: (D)

High WIP and high utilization slow the flow of work. When many items are in progress, queues build up and items spend more time waiting for the next step, which lengthens cycle times. If resources are already fully used, there’s little slack to absorb delays or variability, so any disruption propagates and compounds. With longer cycle times and bottlenecks, the system can’t finish as many items per unit time, so throughput drops. In contrast, increasing WIP beyond the system’s capacity doesn’t speed things up; it just creates more waiting work and slower finish rates. That’s why throughput decreases; the others describe effects that aren’t the direct outcome of overloading the system.