SYSTEM AND SOFTWARE

REQUIREMENT
HARLEY DAVIDSON MOTOR COMPANY

FAROUQ UMAR IDRIS

a little bit special, a little bit

mysterious, a little bit bad

CONTENT
HISTORY
PROBLEMS IN THE CASE STUDY
SOLUTION GIVEN
WHAT COULD BE OUR POSSIBLE
SOLUTIONS INCASE OF THIIRS
HIGHLIGHT OF THE POSITIVES AND
NEGATIVES POINTS
RECOMMENDATION

INTRODUCTION

Harley Davidson motor company was founded in

1903 by William Harley & Arthur Davidson
The company specialises in the production of
motorcycles which makes sale world wide
By 1920, Harley Davidson had become the
largest motorcycle manufacturer in the world
(28,000 per year) with dealers in 67 counties.
It is headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and
has manufacturing facilities in Wisconsin,
Pennsylvania and Missouri and subsidiaries in
Germany, UK, Benelux, France and Japan.

functions

TECHNIQUES USED IN
RESTRUCTURING THE ORGANISATION

Instead of employing a functionally separated hierarchy, it

structured the organisation to consist of three interlocking
circles;
Create demand (CDC): responsible for sales & marketing
Produce products group (PPG): responsible for development
handling & manufacturing
Provide support (PSC): responsible for fulfilling legal duties,
financial, human resources and communication needs.
The circles were headed by standing committees or circles of
leadership as they were known.
A leadership and strategy council comprised of executives
from each group provided oversight of the circles to ensure
that an integrated vision of corporate direction was
maintained.

ITC

Leadership
And strategy
council

Produce
Product
(PPG)

Create
Demand
(CDC)
ITC

Provide
Demand
(PSC)

ITC

THE INFORMATION
SYSTEM ORGANISATION

Teamwork also played a role in the structure of the IS function

at Harley Davidson
Instead of chief information officer, they had office of the
CIO where it is having three directors.
Senior management looks to the CIO to be their internal
consultant, to give them guidance and direction regarding
technologys ability to create business value.
Each circle of leadership had an information technology circle
(ITC) attached to it.
It is made up of senior IS people & end users representing
each site and function.
The role of the ITC was to understand group processes and
interactions and to decide from a business perspective where
the group should focus its technology efforts.

GARRY BERRYMAN AND SUPPLY

MANAGEMENT STRATEGY (SMS)

Since purchased parts comprised of 55-60% of a

motorcycles value, Garry Berryman (founder of
SMS, 1996) thought incorporating suppliers and
in somewhat ways making them partners with
the company will influence cost.
By doing that, he knew the company will get the
right product at the right time with the best
quality and of course at the lowest price possible.
Why he came up with SMS was to help
purchasing staff focus on value-adding activities
in a more strategic way.

SUPPLIER INFORMATION LINK (SiLK)

Cotteleer & Davidson started

investigating the possibilities for new
systems & processes.
In October, 1997, they made a
presentation to the PUG that laid out
value proposition for instigating
significant changes in terms of people,
processes and technology

People
-changes in behaviors that effect the way work is done.
Reduced non strategic staff time and tasks
Error correction/resolution
Elimination of duplicate data entry
Increase in strategic procurement activities
Supplier development
Strategic sourcing
ProcessChanges in method used to get work done.
Reduced complexity through uniform procurement process across all sites
Enabling of the MRO strategy
Reduced procurement of cycle time
Reduced manual activity
Reduced confusion in supply base caused by site specific processes
Increased supplier integration in procurement process
Achieve Quality, cost & timing(QCT) target for procurement related to new product lunch
Technology
changes in tools used to get work done .
Reduced complexity through common tools and system
Reduced system maintenance and obsolescence cost
Data consolidation for decision making
Enterprise view of supply base activity and performance
Enterprise aggregation of demand to leverage suppliers and contracts (across sites and
functions)
Increased suppliers access to quality ,cost, timing and demand data

With Berrymans endorsement, they

handpicked influential players from
across the PPG
Using SMS as starting point, the SiLK
team tried to move from strategy to
action by building a SiLK team.

Sponsors:
Garry Berryman (Purchasing)-VP of materials management
Dave Storm (IS) VP of planning and information services
Steering committee:
Garry Berryman (purchasing ) VP of materials management
Dave Storm (IS)- VP of planning and information services
Tom Cullen (IS)-produce product group
Pat Davidson(purchasing) Manager-Purchasing planning and control
Cory mason (IS) CIO produce product group
Project team:
Julie Anding (IS)-Change Management representative
Chuck Braunschweig (PI)-Process innovation representative
Chuck Carter(Purchasing/PDC)-Purchasing representative for product development with experience as a
senior MRO buyer in the power train organization, and previously a member of the MRO Best Practice
Circle
Glenn Christainson (purchasing/THK)-Materials Manager at Tomahawk with over thirty years of Harley
Davidson experience
Dave cotteleer (IS)- Project manager
Eric Doman (Purchasing/GM)-Purchasing representative for Genera Merchandising
Eileen Jarosz (Purchasing/PDC)-Purchasing Engineer for product development with several years'
experience as an OE buyer at york
Maxine Peissig (Purchasing /PTO)-Purchasing representative for the powertrain organization
Rick Peus (Purchasing/KC)-process manager for purchasing ,planning and control, also representing the
Kansas City production facility
Kerry Sarder (Purchasing /P&A)-Senior buyer and purchasing representative for parts and accessories
Bob Walker (Purchasing/york)-Purchasing representative for york production facility ,having more than
twenty years' experience in materials management at Harley Davidson
Blaine Webster(IS)-System Analyst

SUPPLIER SELECTION

On October 16, 1998, an RFQ for the

new SMS was completely compiled and
submitted to a shortlist of potential
suppliers
The RFQ described the companys SMS
goal in details and recommending
potential software suppliers to bid
based on the specifications mentioned.

CONFERENCE

we walked out there very confident that

this was a company that knew what they
were doing and had a process in place.
We knew that the team was the decisionmaker.
Because of the time it took in making the
RFQ, Harley Davidson knew what they
want and how they wanted it.
In the conference, they presented their
RFQ elegantly and with style

Business value
Tell the truth
Be fair
Keep your promises
Respect the individual
Encourage intellectual curiosity
Business issues
Quality
Participation
Productivity
Flexibility
Cash flow

PROPOSALS AND PRESENTATIONS

Eight suppliers submitted a response to

the RFQ and self-evaluation checklist
Harley Davidson team used the
checklist as a quantitative measure of
the initial functionality
Enter exhibit 10
A three hours presentation was
scheduled for each supplier

NARROWING THE FIELD

We didnt just say: hey, everybody, vote for your top three
and we will go. Even though some people wanted to do that.
I wanted to make sure that we were focusing on the process
and the functionality and the pluses and minuses. So we went
through each company and we did a pro and con list.
David Cotteleer-

Evaluation of written proposals, presentations and notes

from each provider was done.
Elimination was done narrowing the potentials providers to
only three.
Provider 1
Provider 2
Provider 3

PROVIDER 1

Scored 93.4% on self-evaluation

Written proposal tailored to
requirement document in RFQ
Functionality wasnt good enough
Their package didnt provide webenablement (directly)

PROVIDER 2

Scored 98.7% on self-evaluation

Major ERP supplier
Functionality was perfect (web-enabled interface)
Extremely professionals, even more formal than what
Harley Davidson are used to.
Their presentation was flawless and comprehensive
They provided package for writing training
documentation
They didnt emphasize methods or processes for
assessing organisational needs & preparing people
for change
More expensive than other providers

PROVIDER 3

Scored 96.8% on self-evaluation

Also a major ERP player
Functionality wasnt fully demonstrated
Already engaged by Harley Davidson to provide
systems in different functional area
Boilerplate used that some questioned whether
they have even read the RFQ
They were late for the presentation
Presentation was a disaster
Harley Davidson felt antagonised by
condescension of the supplier representatives.

SUMMARY OF SiLK PROJECT ACTIVITIES AND MILESTONES

January 1997

SMS rollout begin

July 1997

Initial SiLK planning meeting

October 1997

Value presentation to purchasing leadership group

Fall 1997

Brainstorming session

November 1997

Allocation of resources from purchasing to form SiLK team

Nov 97-March 98

Identification of commonalities across sites

April 98-Sept98

Systems team engaged

May 98-ongoing

Change management communication to stakeholder community

Sept 30, 1998

Completion of RFQ & distribution to internal stakeholders for review

Oct 9, 1998

Feedback from internal stakeholders

Oct 16, 1998

Distribution of RFQ & invitation to bid

Oct 25, 1998

Software provider confirm intention to bid

Nov 5, 1998

Software provider conference

Nov 16, 1998

Proposals due from potential software providers

Dec 1-4, 1998

Formal presentation of proposals to Harley-Davidson

Dec 7-11, 1998

Review of proposals & presentations

Dec 11, 1998

Shortlist selection of three potential providers

Jan 10-22, 1999

Two-day presentation & scripted demonstration at shortlisted sites

Jan 30, 1999

Finalist selection

WHAT IS THE CASE STUDY TALKING

ABOUT

The case study talks about the change

program initiated by Berryman and on
resulting enterprise software selection
process and also the decision of which
partner to choose in helping the
company.

PROBLEMS IN THE CASE STUDY

Mason foresaw the following hurdles;

Harley Davidsons absolutely overriding concern with unmet demand
and a resulting wariness of any change that might impact production.
The companys natural proclivity to continuous improve, rather than
to transform business functions
were rooted in our heritage. I think part of it is the way our product
line has evolved. Weve got these big long life cycles on our
products. They dont change frequently. We always have continuous
improvement, but larger scale, sweeping changes havent occurred
unless significant events presented reason to change
-Mason
The company are used to their culture and are thinking any change
to what they are used to will affect production.
Another problem we observed from the case study was the study
seems to focus its functionality on purchasing only.

SOLUTIONS GIVEN

Training
Thinking about procurement process
differently (think out of the box)

OUR SOLUTION IN CASE OF THEIRS

The study shouldnt be focused on just

the functionality of purchasing.
Harley-Davidson should expect change
and try to adapt to it.

RECOMMENDATION

Based on the self-evaluation,

presentation and response to the RFQ,
we would recommend provider 2
because of the promising technicality
they showed in their demonstration.

THANK YOU