Leveling – Page 4 – AllAboutLean.com

The Folly of EPEI Leveling in Practice – Part 1

April 5, 2021December 21, 2014 by Christoph Roser

In my last post I presented the EPEI leveling pattern (also known as EPEC, EPEx, Heijunka, fixed repeating pattern, or simply leveling). While in theory this approach looks pretty solid, in my experience it rarely works in practice. In fact, most of these types of leveling that I have seen were complete rubbish. They were a dog-and-pony-show to please management at the expense of performance and shop floor efficiency.

Furthermore, lean manufacturing seems often to be confused with a religion. People believe that if you put up a leveling box your manufacturing system will have salvation. Well, Lean is not a religion. Lean is hard work, and you actually need to understand what you are doing. Just copying something without understanding is a good way to fail, especially with leveling.

Theory of Every Part Every Interval (EPEI) Leveling & Heijunka

April 5, 2021December 14, 2014 by Christoph Roser

Probably among the most popular leveling approaches is Every Part Every Interval (EPEI). Often, this is the method people mean when they talk about leveling (also known as heijunka [平準化]).

The theory about this type of leveling is not very difficult. Unfortunately, hard facts of reality often nullify any possible advantage of this type of leveling. In fact, most of these types of leveling that I have seen were complete rubbish. They were a dog-and-pony-show to please management at the expense of performance and shop floor efficiency. In this post I will explain to you how it is supposed to work in theory. In the next post I will explain why it rarely works in practice .

An Introduction to Capacity Leveling

April 5, 2021December 7, 2014 by Christoph Roser

One approach to leveling (also known as heijunka [平準化], or production smoothing) is capacity leveling: Do not add more production orders into the system than what the system can handle. Try to produce the same total quantity every day. Doable for almost everybody, and one of my favorites. In fact, if you are using a pull system like kanban or CONWIP, then you are already almost there.

This approach is not the highest and best form of leveling, but it is doable for almost all firms. Some other approaches, notably an Every Product Every Cycle (EPEC) approach, often do more harm than good.

Why Leveling (Heijunka) is important

April 5, 2021November 30, 2014 by Christoph Roser

Production leveling, also known as heijunka (平準化) or production smoothing, is one of the hottest topics in lean manufacturing. Successful leveling is considered one of the highest achievements in lean manufacturing. Unfortunately, if the production system is not ready for leveling, it also has lots of potential to make things worse. A lot worse! This is the first post in a longer series of post about leveling, where I will present different types of leveling and their advantages and disadvantages.