ABSTRACT
The first advice for sustaining Paired-cell Overlapping Loops of Cards with Authorization (POLCA) in the long-term is to be resolute and disciplined about the system and the rules. An effective way of institutionalizing the process is to create a POLCA Steering Committee that includes the POLCA Champion and representatives from a few functional areas as well senior management. The POLCA audit helps provide such clues that consultants can follow up on as needed—without the audit, this situation might not have been noticed for a while. The overall goal of this POLCA Steering Committee should be to support and sustain the POLCA implementation in the long term; dealing with urgent issues that arise can be among its shorter-term tasks. The POLCA Champion should be empowered to call a meeting of this committee if an urgent situation arises, such as unexpectedly high demand, unusually short lead time requests by key customers, or unanticipated reduction in capacity due to machine or employee problems.
