Heijunka

Lean Black Belt Tool Heijunka (Level Scheduling)

What is Heijunka

Heijunka (Level Scheduling) is a form of production scheduling that levels out both product type and volume by producing in smaller batches more regularly.

Variants

  1. Volume leveling: Produce the same amount every day.
  2. Product leveling: Produce every product type at least every day (or at regular intervals, e.g. every other day).

Why Heijunka

General advantages

  • Enables meeting flexible customer demand while still reducing Mura.
  • Waste reduction (Mura)

Reduces waste types

  • ☐ Conveyance
  • ☐ Inventory
  • ☐ Motion
  • ☑︎ Waiting
  • ☐ Overproduction
  • ☐ Overprocessing
  • ☑︎ Correction

When to use Heijunka

Essential conditions

None

N/A

Non-essential conditions

SMED

SMED minimizes the changeover time between tasks.

How to implement and use Heijunka

Implementation

  • Creating a stable production schedule needs a perfectly stable customer demand. (E.g. you produce 20 units per day and the customer also needs 20 per day). In reality, however, customer demand is variable. Which leads to too much or too little demand per day.
  • The solution to this problem is a so-called “Heijunka storage” buffer inventory. Inventory is considered waste, but it is a necessary trade-off to enable Heijunka (Level Scheduling) to work.
  • The size of the Heijunka storage should be based on experience and projections of demand but it should be maximized at 1 week of customer demand.

Use

  • In a factory environment:
    • Schedule production as level as possible. Making batch sizes as small as possible, striving to produce every product every day in the same volumes.
  • In an office environment:
    • Divide your agenda into e.g. 5 working days with 8-hour blocks each.
    • Schedule your tasks as level as possible, trying e.g. to do 1 hour every day of task A, then 2 hours every day of task B etc.

Where to find it

IASSC Body of Knowledge:

Lean: 18

Yellow ➔ N/A
Green ➔ Understand
Black ➔ Create

Lean Six Sigma: –

Yellow ➔ N/A
Green ➔ N/A
Black ➔ N/A

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About the Author

Floris Lap is an IASSC-certified Lean Six Sigma Black Belt and founder of Procestimal. He empowers organizations to maximize value and reduce waste through practical Lean Six Sigma solutions—contributing to a more sustainable world where businesses thrive with minimal resources. Contact us

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