ABSTRACT
Provan was founded in 1998 by two young entrepreneurs, Ben Proesmans and Luc Vanhees, with the dream of establishing a thriving metalworking subcontractor. Management felt that the Quick Response Manufacturing (QRM) approach could help attenuate the warehousing problem and the company decided to create a QRM Cell for the production of stoves. In addition to the Paired-cell Overlapping Loops of Cards with Authorization (POLCA) functionality, one straightforward customization of the PROPOS system at Provan was to use the system for recording the time spent on each job at each cell. As is the case in a typical POLCA implementation for high-variety jobs, upstream cells service multiple downstream stations. Lead times at Provan were already quite short because of the flexibility of its resources and management's belief in planning for spare capacity. Provan offers its customers a total solution for welded structures, laser and sheet-metal work, profile machining, and assembly.
