Is American manufacturing dead? Has the good ‘ol US of A become a land full of paper shufflers and burger-flippers? These questions continue to haunt many different industries and businesses in this age of outsourcing.
Thankfully, we have companies like Harley-Davidson to show us the way. While Harley-Davidson still clings to old school manufacturing values, they’ve also taken a hairpin turn into a modern age of processing efficiency that makes competitors eat their dust.
I’ve written about Harley-Davidson before, so I am familiar with their undying devotion to customer centricity. But here at SAP’s SAPPHIRE NOW event in Orlando, I’m hearing more about their amazing transformation story and I am nothing short of impressed by the company’s “all in” mentality to run like never before.
At the heart of this go-for-broke transformation strategy is the Global Manufacturing Enterprise Resource Planning (GME) initiative, which kicked off in October 2009. Ultimately, GME will help Harley-Davison inspire every customer, according to Dave Cotteleer, vice president and CIO of Harley-Davidson. “We want to deliver unique customer experiences to bring more people into the family,” he said during the SAP SAPPHIRE NOW Forum keynote session called “Improve Performance in Manufacturing, R&D and Sustainability.”
Here are other key facts that comprise GME:
- Multi-year strategic initiative led by Business Process Transformation Group
- Using SAP technology, GME delivered consistency to people, processes, data and systems across Harley-Davidson
- Standardized and simplified numerous business processes, changing the way they work
- Provided improved visibility and accuracy of data, better reporting and a clearer picture of the business
Ed Magee, General Manager for Harley-Davidson's York manufacturing facility, shared impressive "before and after" GME results, some of which include the following:
Sounds like Harley-Davidson is on the right track. What do you think? Sound off in the comments section below.
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