Brazil needs more "heijunka"

You know that person who swings between radical mood changes? Who one moment is happy, cheerful, at peace with life? But who in the next period becomes depressed, sad, aggressive? Nobody likes that, right? It really is a problem for those who suffer from it and for those around them. Psychology even classifies this disorder as a very serious illness called bipolar disorder.

Companies, sectors of the economy and even countries can also suffer from this ailment. This phenomenon has been occurring very intensely in Brazil. Some concrete data contribute to this. The evolution of Brazil's GDP over the last 20 years, for example, shows an alternation of good years of growth interspersed with significant periods of decline.

In the FHC years, for example, we had years with increases of 2%, 3% and even 4%, but alternating with very low increases, such as 0.4% and 0.5%. In the Lula years, although there were more years of strong GDP growth, with increases of up to 7%, as in 2010, we also experienced bad periods, as in 2003, with just over 1% growth in wealth.

And in the Dilma administration, even more highs and lows, with growth of almost 4% in 2011 and brutal declines of almost negative 4% now in 2015 and 2016. These highs and lows in the economy harm citizens' lives and make long-term planning difficult for people and companies.

For the management of companies, this unpredictability and lack of stability creates great difficulties. The lean system teaches that one of the foundations of good management is precisely the opposite: “stability” and leveling, or heijunka, to use the Japanese term. In lean management, heijunka means leveling the type and quantity of production over a fixed period of time. This allows production to efficiently meet customer requirements while avoiding excess inventory and reducing costs, labor and production lead time throughout the value stream.

In addition, it is a concept that says it is not good to grow a lot in one period if a big drop follows in the next. If that happens, one cancels out the other, and there is indeed stagnation and poor use of resources, generating periods of idleness at certain times and pressure at others.

Take, for example, the automotive sector. It went through years and years of strong sales growth. To a large extent, with government policies that encouraged artificial growth in the sector much more intense than that of the economy itself. This accelerated growth generated massive investments to expand production capacity and the arrival of many new companies.

Now, however, the sector is suffering enormous losses, such as last year's drop of about 26% in total sales volume. Wouldn't it have been better to grow in a more balanced way in previous years, but in a lasting and sustainable way, avoiding this dark valley we are facing, with billions in losses, unemployment and company bankruptcies, among other things?

At this moment, there is talk of exports to minimize losses. Shouldn't we always be concerned with having significant export volumes to eliminate trade imbalances that may be caused by imports of vehicles and components, which are necessary to keep the industry up to date?

But just as important as economic heijunka is emotional heijunka. As a nation, we swing from the collective idea, at certain moments in our history, that we are an emerging and strong nation, with a guaranteed future among the most developed and advanced nations in the world, to, on the contrary, the perception that we are the worst country of all and that there is no future in sight.

We cannot swing between such disparate views, one jingoistic and the other depressive. We need to recognize our current situation, as it realistically presents itself, with data and facts. And recognize the serious problems we have in the social, political and economic spheres.

With a deep diagnosis, identifying the causes of our main problems, we can begin to think about solid alternatives for growth and development. Brazil needs more heijunka, more leveling. Starting with emotional heijunka. There is no point in growing a lot at one moment and, at the next, losing everything that was achieved. Or getting excited without realistic grounds and then becoming discouraged and enraged.