What does it mean sufficient utilization?

Answer 1

It usually means that the monetary or value payback of a "cost center", such as a thing, group of machinery, or person, is enough to justify the cost to keep paying expense of it or them.

A simple view would be to say that:

1.) A person who uses a computer at work all day, who has barely enough time to get all his work done is fully utilized.

2.) A person who has a workload that requires 7+ hours out of the 8 hour day is sufficiently utilised, in most organizations' eyes.

3.) However, A person who has much more time than that to kill each day on the computer is not sufficiently utilized and might be on the list for a layoff.

Same with machinery. Suppose you have a machine that makes screws or bolts. It cost $300,000 and you are paying for its maintenance and feeding the monster with $500 worth of electricity each month, as well as paying the bank back for the loan of the money. You better keep it up and running and turning out product to pay all these costs, or it will not be sufficiently utilized.