Harley Davidson Is the World's Largest Producer Essay

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Harley Davidson is the world's largest producer of heavyweight motorcycles. The company is structured around operating business divisions and along functional lines including retail stores, Buell and the flagship line. The company operates four major manufacturing facilities: vehicle operations in York, PA produces touring bikes; Tomahawk, WI produces saddlebags, windshields and other parts; Kansas City, MO produces several bike families and some powertrain; Menomonee Falls, WI produces powertrains. Head office is in Milwaukee, and there are also facilities in Valley View, OH and Ann Arbor, MI (Harley-Davidson.com, 2011).

Harley Davidson has 9700 employees worldwide (Ibid). Most factory employees are unionized under the United Steelworkers (USW) and International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (AIM) (Fisher, Wilson & Hahn, no date). Recent years have seen a turnaround in the company's fortunes, but this has led to some conflicts with workers. In York, a strike occurred as workers sought to gain improvements to their compensation as the company was engaged in a successful turnaround of its business (Meyer & Waddell, 2007).

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The company has a tiered wage system that "creates divisions between older and newer employees," indicative of a situation where the company had offered generous wage and benefits packages in the past, then began to suffer as foreign competitors entered the market. Younger workers are forced to take less in order to keep the company competitive in today's market (Ibid).

In response to the company's poor performance in the competitive marketplace, Harley needed to make changes to its organizational structure in the late 1990s. The company adopted the concept of the circle organization, a system that encourages openness, resulting in teamwork with explicitly creating teams. Instead of having a linear organization where ideas flow up the chain of command, people can collaborate on ideas without relying on the hierarchy for implementation. This includes all internal stakeholders….....

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