Leveling (business administration)

Leveling stands for the smoothing of very unevenly occurring production orders in the manufacturing industry and is therefore a term from business administration, especially in the area of production planning and control .

description

The leveling results in a decoupling of the production orders to be entered in terms of quantity and chronological order from the existing customer orders. The aim of leveling lies in the planning and implementation of a regular and cyclical (and thus standardized) production program with the aid of special lot size creation schemes while at the same time observing the supply and demand of capacities. In the context of production leveling , the PPS concept of Kanban control is increasingly being used.

Simple example

A customer orders 1000 pieces of product A, 5000 pieces of product B and 10,000 pieces of product C.

Without leveling, the producer would plan three production lots: Product A 1000 pieces, then 5000 pieces from B and finally 10,000 pieces C. With leveling, the producer would split the total quantity into production orders of the same size, for example 100 A, then 500 B and then 1000 C. .

He keeps this pattern until the complete set is fulfilled: and so on. The advantages of this method are lower stocks, greater flexibility and greater delivery reliability . ${\ displaystyle 100 \ \ mathrm {A} \ rightarrow 500 \ \ mathrm {B} \ rightarrow 1000 \ \ mathrm {C} \ rightarrow 100 \ \ mathrm {A} \ rightarrow 500 \ \ mathrm {B} \ rightarrow 1000 \ \ mathrm {C} \ rightarrow 100 \ \ mathrm {A}}$

Automobile assembly

Leveling and smoothing production programs plays an important role in automotive engineering. Since the vehicles are manufactured according to customer orders and (almost) every customer order differs from the others, the work content and work / assembly times for the individual vehicles are different. In order to use the assembly workers and equipment evenly, the vehicles must be placed in such a sequence that no overload or underload occurs. However, in operational practice in the automotive industry, different effects can be observed in the supply of materials in the context of internal production logistics. A leveling with regard to an even utilization of the equipment in the material supply does not necessarily have to be an advantage.

literature

W. Herlyn: PPS in automobile construction - production program planning and control of vehicles and assemblies . Hanser Verlag, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-446-41370-2 .
A. Smalley: Smoothing production systems: Instructions for lean production according to the pull principle - adapted to customer demand. 1st edition. Lean Enterprise Institute, 2005, ISBN 0-9763152-4-6 .
D. Wörner: Sequence formation in automobile assembly based on material-oriented leveling strategies. Analysis of the effects on the internal material supply. 1st edition. Cuvillier Verlag, 2015, ISBN 978-3-7369-9007-4 .

Individual evidence

^ W. Herlyn: PPS in automobile construction. Hanser Verlag, 2012, p. 218 ff.
↑ D. Woerner: Sequence formation in automobile assembly based on material-oriented leveling strategies. Analysis of the effects on the internal material supply. Cullivier Verlag, 2015, pp. 137 ff.