Given when this was (early 90s going by the story?) I could easily believe it... nowadays there would be an executive level senior manager ultimately responsibl

Given when this was (early 90s going by the story?) I could easily believe it... nowadays there would be an executive level senior manager ultimately responsible for "run" who would actually have a clue on forward planning for capacity but back then running capacity to its limit, being told several times "no" along the way and then being blamed when it all fell over were very much the norm, especially in banks, in my experience.