Principles for Accomplishing Improvements
Honda has established a program for its suppliers to strive for improvements in order to meet Honda’s requirements. The goals of the BP program are to improve the relationship between Honda and their suppliers, reduce manufacturing costs, and eliminate product defects. They accomplish these goals by focusing on 5 key areas: Best Position, Best Productivity, Best Product, Best Price, and Best Partners (Bounds and Arnold).
Best Position
The principle of Best Position entails improvement of Honda’s global competitiveness. For Honda and their suppliers to improve in global competitiveness, they need to have a plan. Modine and most U.S. firms need further development in the process of planning. Instead of
…show more content…
Honda considers themselves as an assembler, rather than a manufacturer. Since Honda buys 75% of their parts from suppliers, they must have a good relationship with their suppliers. The positive relationship between Honda and their suppliers leads to the procurement of quality parts at competitive prices. If Honda strictly wanted the lowest price, the quality of a product would be compensated. Continuously helping their suppliers to produce high quality products at fair prices, Honda solidifies the relationship between their suppliers into the future (Bounds and Arnold).
Continual Improvement
The BP program was a success. Even though there is still room for enhancement, the BP program helped Modine improve in order to meet Honda’s standards for their suppliers. By focusing on the 5 key areas, Modine was able to improve their relationship with Honda, reduce manufacturing costs, and eliminate product defects. They must strive for continuous improvement by following the principles that BP stands for (Bounds and Arnold).
Honda-Modine Relationship in Contrast to other Supplier/Customer Relation
Relationship between Honda and Modine
A company’s relationship with key suppliers is a vital part of any company’s success. A good supplier relation means better price, meeting company standards and a better service level. That 's why when Honda started working with Modine, Honda made sure that its relationship with Modine was
Supplier Compliance programs are in place for both Domestic and Offshore Suppliers. Training programs are in place to help Suppliers understand and comply with our Supply Chain requirements. (Corporation, 1997-2016)
Any time the company is looking into software project, there are areas associated with risk such as cost, time and relationship with suppliers. However, for Harley-Davidson, “collocation of suppliers with production facilities and their integration into company’s development process was the essential part of long-term relationship development”. Through a continued focus on collaboration and strong supplier relationships, the company could position itself to achieve strategic objectives and deliver cost and quality improvement over the long-term. Since, at that time company had no centralized system in place to handle relationship with suppliers and consequently, most of company’s time was spent on supplier management activities. For example, reviewing inventory, expediting and data entry. Furthermore, each supplier had different information systems for “Maintenance, Repair, and Operations (MRO), Original Equipment (OE), Parts and Accessories (P&A), and General Merchandising (GM) purchasing activities”. The systems, already provided by supplier, had to be further modified to meet individual need at each location, such as “the OE system at Harley-Davidson’s York, Pennsylvania site was different from the OE system in Kansas City”. However, due to long-standing tradition of gradual change implementation and focus on quality, quick transitions were unwelcome and did not come easy for the company. The size of the project determined how much risk was involved in terms of cost, time, and supplier relationships. The idea of switching to global purchasing system was seen as a threat not only in supplies and production flow interruption, but also in damaged dealer/customer relationships and lost sales. Furthermore, failure of the sy...
In the future, when other manufacturers are looking for a good distributor to do business with, the manufacturer might look at the distributor’s history of poor relationships with other manufacturers and customers. Since manufacturers do not want to conduct business with distributors who have a bad reputation, they will do business with another distributor, which will result in profit loss for the distributor with the bad reputation. For example, if there is a problem between Amazon and Dell, then Amazon might lose customers who were looking for Dell computers. This will also affect Dell, because customers might buy computers from other companies, resulting in losses for
The biggest challenge facing Harley-Davidson is poor quality. Beals and other mangers visited Japanese plants, as well as Honda's plant in Marysville, OH. There they learned that they were not being beat by automation or advanced manufacturing processes, but by a professional management team and motivated workers.
Our commitment to steady, long-term improvement in our products and processes is the cornerstone of our business strategy. To achieve this objective, we must work to continuously improve the overall quality of our design, manufacturing, administrative, and support organizations.
According to Pep Boys, (2015), a third concept known as Express Service Parts allows Pep Boys to sell automotive parts to the professional installer. This concept began in the mid-1990s (Boys, The Pep Boys--Manny, Moe & Jack SWOT Analysis, 2015). Consequently, with this third concept, Pep Boys is able to keep up and exceed their competition’s standards for customer service. The stakeholder values center around a culture of fair play and honest business dealings in the day by day operation of the company. The stakeholders are as follows; Ichan Enterprises, which hold a major part of Pep Boys stock, stock holders, as well as the supply warehouses that resupply Pep Boys with auto parts (Schaefer,
The suppliers bargaining power is generally strong because of the big monopolies and the high importance of purchasing components and operating system, therefore it decreases the profitability of the market players.
Despite their conception in 1903, Harley-Davidson and the motorcycle industry as a whole didn’t really take off until after the Second World War. Many people rode motorcycles during the war, with Harley-Davidson themselves supplying almost 90,000 motorcycles for the U.S. military during this time. Many veterans chose to purchase motorcycles upon returning home, as they enjoyed riding during the war and wanted to continue riding in their civilian life. This generation known as the "baby-boomers" quickly became the main target audience for many of Harley-Davidson’s marketing efforts. With sales increasing and the industry growing, many "motorcycle clubs" and "rallies" were introduced. Unfortunately, due to the lewd behavior displayed by most people associated with these clubs and rallies, bikers typically had an image of being disorderly and raucous. Harley-Davidson’s image itself took a big shot due to the Hells Angels. This was a motorcycle gang wishing to become notorious for "drug trafficking and other organized crime activities," who used only Harley-Davidson motorcycles. All of this combined to lead to a decline in demand and sales throughout the entire industry during the 1960’s. The industry was really helped out with the release of the Hollywood film Easy Rider in 1969. This film helped change the public’s perception of bikers and sparked an increase in motorcycle demand which has lasted to this day.
John Deere’s ability to operate profitably throughout their business cycle has been through proper supply chain management, rigorous cost controls, and lean productivity John Deere shows ambition towards future sustainment with agricultural equipment solutions and a larger global presence in their construction equipment product line. While agriculture equipment has gotten more powerful and larger than original designs, John Deere understands the importance of increased technology and innovation to meet the needs of customers around the world. John Deere strives to meet the business conditions for their customers by developing cost strategies that meet the goals and expectations of the current customer base and future
They can translate their core value of honesty into action by giving true and accurate estimates for the repair service of the autos. They can translate the value of reliability by doing a satisfactory job on the repairs. They can translate their values by giving an excellent customer service to the customers. This will produce A-plus value, thus strengthen the relationships by building customer loyalty.
Honda, The Car Everyone Needs Beep! Beep! Beep! Goes the alarm clock in the other room. Oh man, surely it can't be time to get up yet, you think to yourself. As you scramble out of the bed and into the shower, the thought crosses your mind, I hope my car starts.
A reputation for ethical decisions builds trust in your business among business associates and suppliers. Strong supplier relationships are critical to a successful business. Consider the problems you might have if you could not supply what the customer needs...at the time that they need it.
The alliance between Honda and Rover from 1981 to 1994 was thought to be a successful case at that moment. However, four years after the end of the relationship, Rover still just had all those old models in its product portfolio. On the other hand, it was said that because of the end of the relationship, Honda was put back by four years (Button 2005).
...hing versus very expensive unscheduled repairs that may be required under troublesome conditions causing production to stop and loss of revenue. Good PM saves money over a product’s life cycle.
Honda- focused differentiation, medium pricing, breadth of product line is high. Strengths are quality, reliability, overall value, and styling.