Small-Business Lessons From Harley-Davidson's Turnaround

The New York Times:

This weekend, I read an article in the Wall Street Journal about how Harley-Davidson turned itself around using "lean" manufacturing strategies. Lean, or just-in-time, manufacturing is the Toyota production system, which started with W. Edwards Deming and his work with statistical quality control. Whenever I see this kind of article about a large company, I think about how the thoughts and principles can be applied to the smaller companies I work with.

As I read this one, three things occurred to me.

1. The idea behind lean is to create capacity -- not to reduce employee headcount. In this case, Harley-Davidson reduced its headcount by more than 1,000 people using lean techniques. Harley-Davidson probably can do this just once. If it continues to use lean strategies to reduce headcount, it will see employee enthusiasm for the program wane.

Read the whole story at The New York Times

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/25/small-business-lessons-fr_n_1912212.html

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