The “Heijunka” presentation motivates the role of production levelling and explains the system configuration, dynamics and resulting benefits.

Topics covered are as follows:

- What is “Heijunka”?
- Where heijunka fits within the Toyota Production System
- Definitions and symbols used
- Typical high volume production systems, symptomatic problems and characteristics
- “Perfect” customer behaviour and production load
- How “heijunka” mimics perfect customer behaviour
- How the heijunka system is configured
- Systems dynamics: events, kanban and materials movement, lot formation and production queues
- Detailed explanation of the visual cues provided by the system – how to “manage by walking around”
- Steps for implementation
- Example results from an actual implementation

“How the Calculate Lot Sizes” explains how most companies calculate lot sizes, why this calculation is invalid in the majority of real-world situations and how to go about calculating lot sizes the right way and improve flow.

Topics covered are as follows:

- The importance of lot sizing decisions and how they are calculated in MRP/ERP systems
- The Economic Order Quantity (EOQ) model and assumptions
- The Economic Manufacturing Quantity (EMQ) model and assumptions
- Why multiple parts make the EMQ model invalid
- Multiple parts and the Economic Lot Scheduling Problem (ELSP)
- Why science cannot provide the “optimal lot size” - implications of NP Hard problems
- Analytical and stochastic approaches to solving the ELSP
- Other ESLP assumptions that don’t hold in the real world
- ELSP implications – what can we learn?
- Practical solutions and the “10% Rule”
- How to calculate lot sizes (using the spreadsheet supplied)
- Solution evaluation, complications, issues and solutions
- How this calculation applies to the physical system
- Other considerations

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Loading Algorithm and Board Configuration Presentation

The “Heijunka Algorithm and Board Configuration” explains exactly how to go about setting up the heijunka board and how to determine the loading pattern from customer demand. The calculation is illustrated via a simple 3 part, 3 period example.