The Product Wheel Handbook

Creating Heijunka in High-Mix Process Operations

Breaking down a fairly complex design process into manageable steps, The Product Wheel Handbook 2nd Edition, walks readers through the process for designing and implementing the PW technique. It includes a case study taken from actual practice that illustrates the design process and its benefits.

Product Wheel is a scheduling strategy that has practical, well-proven methods for enabling operations managers to find the optimum balance between inventory, operating cost, and customer service, particularly useful in high-mix process operations. They do so in a way that increases throughput to either increase revenue or reduce operating cost while providing a structured, repeatable manufacturing platform that reduces plant floor chaos. DuPont, Exxon Mobil, Dow Chemical, and Litehouse Foods are just a few companies that have used the product wheel concept to achieve and sustain a competitive advantage.

Breaking down a fairly complex design process into manageable steps, The Product Wheel Handbook: Creating Heijunka in High-Mix Process Operations, 2nd Edition walks readers through the process for designing, implementing, and maintaining the product wheel technique. It describes each step in detail based on a case study taken from actual practice.

This book:

• Provides clear, practical guidance on how to balance the trade-offs encountered in implementing any scheduling strategy
• Describes how product wheels satisfy the lean goal of production levelling, Heijunka, in a much more comprehensive way
• Defines the cultural foundation necessary for smooth product wheel design and implementation
• Describes how product wheel design places appropriate emphasis on people engagement and empowerment as well as on process and technology

Many of the steps in wheel design described in this book are not new. What is new is a proven road map explaining how to apply them in an integrated, holistic manner, starting with a thorough understanding of material flow and equipment performance coupled with product characteristics and requirements. The result is a disciplined scheduling structure that will allow you to spend less of your time firefighting and more time in higher valued, more productive work. More importantly it provides your organization with a stable platform to deal with abnormal events in a less stressful and more logical manner.

This second edition benefits from the additional perspectives, experiences, and insights gained through the past thirteen years of product wheel design and implementation in a wider range of companies and industry sectors.

• It describes some of the advanced scheduling systems that have evolved over the past dozen years, how to take advantage of them, and when traditional tools like Excel are still appropriate and the better choice
• It details a dozen examples of the successes and benefits that various companies have achieved with product wheels. The Supply Chain Vice Presidents and Operations Directors describe in their own words the impact that product wheels have had on their operations