Leadership Styles Of Harley Davidson Management Essay

Leadership Styles Of Harley Davidson Management Essay Introduction: This case study is about Harley-Davidson a prestigious American Motorcycle manufacturer situated at Milwaukee U.S.A, with a full year 2009 revenue of $4.29 billion and income of $70.6 million from continuing operations. (Press release www.harley-davidson.com) This analysis has its focus on a brief history of H-D, which includes the manufacturing issues and the problems it had, the various strategic changes made by H-D in the manufacturing process to achieve its goals. The implementation of JIT and its effect on the plant and the product, the Supplier development, Supplier relationship and the efforts towards Supply Chain Management. It also includes the Risks, costs and benefits of Supplier development, the Key learning which we take away from the case study and lastly it concludes with the future trends in SCM. A brief History: In 1970s heavy weight motorcycle market was in the hands of H-D. The Corporate parent AMF wanted to take advantage of this market dominance by production of more bikes at a faster rate.In the process they lost the focus on Quality and Supply Chain Management. In 1974 the quality of the product was at its bottom. Harley-Davidson needed a desperate change to overcome these issues, in 1981, a group of local management was put together to rebuilt the company. Key theories, Strategic changes and Implementation at H-D: 1. Inventory, Inventory Turns and Cash Flow: A downfall in sales due to the quality problems increased their inventory level to $24 million. H-D worked on Inventory Management. Inventory Turns The number of times a company rolls over its inventory per year is defined as its Inventory Turns. Calculation: Most commonly used method is to divide the annual sales of the company per year by the average inventory level maintained per year. For example, if the average sales of a company is $2,000,000 per year and the average inventory maintained for a year is say $50,000 than the inventory turns for that particular company is 8 ( ref. Supply chain metrics.com) The increase in the Inventory Turns of a company, generates more free cash flow. Free cash flow is an asset, as it can be used for other advantages rather than blocking the money in Inventory Stock. (Ref.Marie Leone CFO.com, Supply chain metrics.com) At H-D an inventory turns of 4.5/year was increased up to a level of 28.Consequently the inventory came down to $4 million. 2. Shift of manufacturing strategy from Push to Pull and JIT: PUSH and PULL PUSH is the traditional style of manufacturing in which a product is manufactured irrespective of its demand. The process then Pushs to the next step. It may be the selling of the product. This leads to unnecessary inventory, over stock because the production goes on without the actual demand of the product. PULL is the lean style of manufacturing in which a product is manufactured on demand. If there is no demand, there would be no production. This saves money as unnecessary production is avoided. Lesser inventory is maintained because what is produced is consumed. The customer will PULL the product from the manufacturing facility.Manufacturing facility is in tune with the market dynamics. (Ref.leanmanufacturingconcepts.com) Lean Thinking is an articulation of the core principles behind the Toyota Production System (TPS), acknowledged to be the most efficient in the world today. (Manufacturing Operations and Supply Chain Management the LEAN approach David Taylor and David Brunt) Just in Time Manufacturing (JIT) Just in Time Manufacturing Just in Time (JIT) manufacturing is a Japanese management philosophy applied in manufacturing which involves having the right items of the right quality and quantity in the right place and at the right time. The proper use of JIT manufacturing has resulted in increases in quality, productivity and efficiency, improved communication and decreases in costs and wastes. Goals of JIT: Finding customer needs and responding to it: Production is tuned according to the customer demands. Cost effective quality standards: quality should and must be the topmost priority, but it should be cost effective. Work for a minimum wastes: Elimination of wastes which are of no use for the production. Trust development in relationships with the suppliers: Supplier relationship is of utmost importance specially in the case of single sourcing, it is a strength of company to have strong supplier relations, both in terms of materials, inventory and deliveries on time. Plant designing for utmost efficiency and easy manufacturing: Plant design must ease the production process with least labour involvement. It must ensure to use the full plant potential. Striving hard for improvements on a continual basis: This makes organization competitive and committed to the needs of the costumers, as customer demands are always volatile. (Ref.Just in Time Manufacturing, T.C.E Cheng and S Podolsky; Curtin University of Technology, Australia; Institute for Manufacturing University of Cambridge) Changes and Quality development at H-D: H-D shifted from PUSH (anticipating demand) to PULL (responding to orders). Set up times were reduced drastically, it made smaller life-size feasible.H-D moved towards Just in Time manufacturing and Supply Chain Management. It invested in group problem solving program, like Quality Circle and made a policy to respond to any of the problem issues within two weeks. Employee involvement at H-D made them even more commited.An Example: To me every transmission and engine bolted is going to my motorcycle, Doug Tearney, Final Inspector Harley-Davidson. Supplier Selection and Development: Supplier Selection: JIT emphasis on single sourcing.Single Sourcing is a sourcing strategy in which the company buying is dependant on a single company for almost all of the particular item or service. Suggestive qualitative aspects used for supplier evaluation: Design, development and process capacity. How capable the management is? Financial know-hows and structure of cost. Environmental Regulation Compliance. Longer-Term Relationship Potential. (Ref. Introduction to Operations and Supply Chain Management, Cecil C. Bozarth and Robert B. Handfield) Supplier development: Supplier development can be defined as any activity that a buyer undertakes to improve suppliers performance and/or capabilities to meet the buyers short-term, long-term supply needs. Or in other words, Supplier development can be loosely defined as the process of working collaboratively with suppliers to improve or expand their capabilities. (Ref. http://www.nist.gov/mep/manufacturers/supplier-development.cfm) A supplier development program must aim for improving the performance of a supplier; and helping them to get what they need to be successful in supply chain. Important functions of supplier development programs: Providing information about products, expected sales growth, etc. Suppliers need to become extensions of their customers. Training in the application of lean and quality tools. If suppliers had more information about the entire supply chain and had a true lean transformation underway, they would become more profitable and provide a better quality and lower-cost product, on-time. (Ref. http://lean-supply-chain.blogspot.com/2006/10/what-is-supplier-development.html) (Ref.Avoid the Pitfalls in Supplier Development Robert B. Handfield, Daniel R Krause, Thomas V .Scannell and Robert M. Monczka) Supplier Management at H-D: Supplier Optimization: H-D cuts its supplier base from 320 to 120 and established performance requirements. Suppliers must have MAN, JIT, Statistical Operator Control and Employee Involvement. Supplier problems and Solutions: H-D required JIT at Supplier end, but suppliers had problems with it as they deal with different types of customers. They ended up with Just in Time warehouses, which leads to quality problems. For JIT at supplier end, proper advance scheduling was given by H-D.Piston supplier KSG adapted to H-D requirements. It changed from producing to two months inventory, to producing as per the requirement. KSG did the entire process from bowing to packaging in just a space of 35ft with two-three operators, with unbelievable throughput time. Previously the same work was done with fifteen operators scattered all over the plant. Ultra Tool the metal stamping company, a supplier of H-D, had great success with MAN program. At Ultra tool for a number of operations on a part it required part movement. A cell was designed at Ultra Tool that reduces the part movement to just 10 feets.The parts were taken to a particular area in this cell and it included tooling as well. It made the process fairly quick. Commonality of purpose: Harley improved the processes at Ultra Tool; in return it had no price rise from this supplier for 3-4 years.(an example of mutual benefit to Customer and Supplier). Risks, cost and benefits of Supplier Development: Supplier development involves the cost which is incurred by the Customer company and no immideate returns are visible for it.This depend upon the need and the value of the product that the funds are allocated for the trainings and development of suppliers

Rogerian Essay: Same Sex Schools vs. Co-Ed School

Samantha Finocchio English 211 Mrs. Plummer March 5th, 2o13 Rogerian Essay Same Sex Schools vs. Co-ed Schools People everywhere have different beliefs. In this case, trying to decide whether schools should be the same gender or mixed gender is the problem. This predicament is affecting how our children of the future will learn and succeed in life. There are pros and cons for both co-ed and same sex schooling. Some say co-ed schools should remain the way they are; others strongly disagree and believe that schools should consist of one sex only. Same sex schools can be down right awful for some students.Depending on how you look at it, the co-ed interaction could be great. Some students need the socialization to live. These types of students thrive on it. They want to be able to learn about the other sex so later in life they will not feel vulnerable when they enter the real world. The real world is clearly full of both men and women. Job atmospheres are almost always co-ed nowadays. W ithout growing up in that type of environment young adults from same sex schools may not know how to react when they get there. Being stuck in a same gender school your whole life can be boring and drab.There is no personal expression, style, flirting, or even any drama. People live for these things and they are not accessible in same sex schools they will be distressed. Another reason co-ed schools tower over private same sex schools is because private schools are too strict. One way they are is because they often require uniforms. Uniforms are no fun when you cannot express your own style. They do not give individuals the opportunity to express themselves by being different. Another reason co-ed schools are better is because they are often easier on their students when it comes to discipline.A lot of parents feel that the discipline should be learned at home. The education facility is a place to learn about school matters, not etiquette. Although, co-ed schools may be more fun and entertaining, are the students actually learning anything? Evidently, co-ed schools do have their positive effects on students but same sex schools are ultimately better. Co-ed schools cannot compete with private same sex schools because the same sex schools are much better environments for focus and learning purposes. That is the main importance of this problem. A greater amount of work will get done if it is only girls and only boys.Schools that are same gender are generally private schools. This means the students would be wearing uniforms. Uniforms stand for unity and equality. They make it so that everyone is equal and clothes will not be an indicator of popularity or wealth. No one will be compared to others because of what they are wearing since they will all be dressed the same. Flirting and sexual activity will be cut down extremely. When boys and girls are together they often tend to get distracted and in trouble by talking, giggling or caught up in each other and not get their school work done. This would also cut back on the drama.Girls tend to fight and cause drama but when you take boys out of the picture a majority of the problems will dissolve. Often, children, teens, and young adults who are misbehaved have parents that cannot handle them and end up sending them away to boarding schools to learn discipline. Every school will be same sex/private so parents will not have to worry about sending their child away because they will get the same discipline in every single school. It was proven in 2000 by ACER that â€Å"boys and girls in single-sex schools were more likely to be better behaved and to find learning more enjoyable and the curriculum more relevant. This being said, with only of the genders in the classroom, class sizes would be cut in half. Smaller classes will allow each teacher to better focus on each student individually. Although people have views on same sex and co-ed schools that differ drastically, they can come to a compromise by doing a little of both. This consensus will be that schools will be same sex from kindergarten to eighth grade. This will give children the to chance to learn the fundamentals of their studies with no interruptions. They will be able to learn discipline in their younger years so when they get older they will already have the skills to use in life.Compromising for the people who are for co-ed schools, all of high school and higher education co-ed schooling will be a choice. Being in a co-ed environment as a young adult will give them enough experience for the real world while already have the superior essentials from same sex private schools in their childhood. These same gender schools at an elementary and middle school level will then turn into co-ed school for high school and benefit both sides of the problem. WORK CITED â€Å"NASSPE: Research Single-Sex vs. Coed: The Evidence. † NASSPE: Research Single-Sex vs. Coed: The Evidence. N. p. , n. d. Web. 06 Mar. 2013.

Magazine Advertisment Essay

Advertisements are everywhere on TV, the internet, movies, magazines, etc. They are there to get people to buy whatever it is that they are advertising. They do it with color, models, and tricky words. In this case my magazine advertised a lip balm called â€Å"Baby Lips†. This advertisement says that you can, â€Å"kiss dull lip balms goodbye and instead have baby lips† making it so that woman get interested into buying this product because you will have baby lips. The colors that are being used in my advertisement are grey, black, bright orange, and white. What is being suggested in this advertisement is that you should wear the lip balm shown in the magazine because it will give you baby lips. In the article the picture is of a pretty woman whose whole face is grey, except her lips. The rest of the article is in very light colors making it so that the lip balm and the models lips are the two things stand out the most. Both of them are in a bright orange color that makes them stand out more than anything else in the picture. Also in my advertisement there is a model, she is a female, although you can’t see all her body and just her face you can tell that she is pretty just by the way her eyelashes and eyebrows are done. The expression on her face is as if the woman is going to give someone a kiss. She has her eyes closed but she looks like if she’s in the mood of kissing someone and feels good about that. All these little details are made to imply that with this lip balm everyone will want to get kissed by your baby lips. In the picture there is also a before and after picture of someone’s lips but you can’t really tell the difference. Words are a big help in advertising. The words call the reader’s attention and also can sometimes fool the buyer. In my ad it says â€Å"In one week your lips will be visibly renewed.† Although it says that, there is no given proof of it. They don’t provide us with a survey of people or percentage of people who says that. Also the word baby lip is in bright orange to get the viewers attention because it stands out who wouldn’t want baby lips right? There is also a small caption next to the bright orange lip balm that says that it’s an exclusive lip renew formula. Furthermore the model is saying that she wants a clinical strength care with a kick of color to get woman to buy it because not only does it help you care for your lips but it also gives you some color. The intended audience for the lip balm is young woman or any type of woman who want to get baby looking lips and wants to stand out at the same time. The woman who are interested in this lip balm are probably the ones who are looking for non dull lips and instead interested in lips that are more moisturized and lips that stand out. Lastly, advertising helps buyers learn more about the product but it also tricks buyers into buying stuff that most of the time doesn’t work.

French Subjunctive - Le Subjonctif

French Subjunctive - Le Subjonctif