What is Heijunka in Toyota Production?

Heijunka is a Japanese term that refers to the process of leveling or smoothing production processes in Lean manufacturing. The goal of Heijunka is to balance production so that a stable and consistent rate of output can be achieved, with minimum inventory and waste. This helps to reduce the variation in production and meet customer demand more effectively. The Heijunka process involves the use of pull systems, takt time, and Kanban signals to achieve a smooth flow of work and reduce the effects of uncertainty and variability in the production process.

 

8A, 8B, 4C, 6D and 3E being done in 8 hrs

More often when we have many tasks to be done, we tend to finish them sequentially one by one. We say we can only focus on one task, let me finish it before going to the next one. More often than not, when we finish one task, may be the highest priority one, we get tired or lose interest in completing the others and decide to postpone those activities to another time.  We postpone to another time or day or procrastinate to the next occasion .. 

 

Toyota Production System on the other hand, believes in uniformly distributing the work during the available time so that no work is completed hastily and no work is postponed, ie. all work gets done with uniform pace spread right across the available time.