Global Sensitivity Analysis of Heijunka Controlled Assembly Line

Abstract

Heijunka (production leveling) is a technique that is associated with lean management, and is responsible for reducing the bullwhip effect. With Heijunka, fluctuations in customer orders are not transferred directly to the manufacturing system, which permits a smoother production and better produc- tion capacity utilization. A variance-based Sobol method was used to conduct the global sensitivity analysis. Discrete-event simulation was used to carry out experi- ments on random data-sets. Through this analysis it was determined that the most influential parameter was lot size, followed by change over time, and variation of technological operation duration.