There are aspects of this[1] book that I really enjoyed. I have no hardware/factory experience either but I had taken some operations research courses in colleg

There are aspects of this[1] book that I really enjoyed. I have no hardware/factory experience either but I had taken some operations research courses in college. In general, holding onto inventory more than you need is a waste of time, space, cost and introduces other complexities as well - like a defect identified even a little bit later in the process could lead to huge waste if you’re holding on to too much. But of course not having any sort of reserve also leads to issues. During the pandemic one of the only car companies that didn’t have major disruption was Toyota and they were the pioneers of this model of operating but they also understood the need to keep reserves of critical components. In the case of Apple, they do have a backup plan - the lower end models were already being manufactured outside China and they could scale that up while they scramble to fix the Pro lines. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Goal-Process-Ongoing-Improvement/dp/0884271951/ref=nodl_?dplnkId=d6eeff6b-2314-4cff-8129-e8b8bd4d979b https://www.amazon.com/Goal-Process-Ongoing-Improvement/dp/0...