I read an article from a Polaris employee from a few years ago when Polaris first bought the Indian name. It was about a design engineer that worked for Harley at the time. He said Harley was meeting after meeting after meeting on redesigning a horn cover. It was slow and not exciting to work there. The meetings sounds a lot like the place I work. Meetings on getting things done but nothing gets done! haha. Well Polaris contacted him offered him a job and wanted him to lay out the scout for them. He took the job and said we went to a meeting the boss said lets see what you have. they presented it and he said make it happen! he got to lay out that entire bike! Very exciting. I really like the way they go with something and don't over think it. Wish I could give a reference to the article but I can't. I am pretty sure I read it in Motorcycle Consumer News that is now out of print. Of course they pulled the plug right after I sent in a 2 year subscription renewal. Dirty of the company that owned all those magazines. Well anyway I like how fast they can start a project and finish it and get it to the consumer.
Over the years, I worked for a couple of different HD tier suppliers. Following is a true story circa 2003
Willy G had ridden his new HD model "whatever" to Daytona. By the time he got there, the paint was flaking off the cylinders. A major uproar went up inside HD over this. It turned out that this was a common problem with the coating they were applying in house. We were brought in and after some development work, created a coating that met all of the new performance requirements including extended Dyno and field testing. The whole process ran a full year. The meeting for implementation was surreal. Following is very edited version
HD-Q1 We like the appearance and the performance is superior, how did it apply?
A- 3.5 out of 5
HD- Q2 can it reclaim?
A- we believe so but this is a new formula developed for HD to address your field failures. We do not have direct experience
HD- Q3 If it cannot be reclaimed, how long will it take to change back
A-12-16 hours (HD internal answer)
HD- If that happens, we will miss our production schedule. Will you indemnify us if that happens?
A at this point we had about $75K invested in the project. Now they wanted us to guarantee their operating expenses and profits for the whole plant. I made polite noises and we left. I told my sales guy we were done
At that point I came to a couple of conclusions
1. HD would rather make defects than miss production
2. HD employees were afraid to take any risks. This was/is a culture problem
3. I decided I would NEVER BUY a HD product.
2 years later when I changed employers, they still had not fixed the problem
I think HD's risk aversion has caused them to miss many opportunities over the last 20 years. I think their value these days is only in their Brand and it is losing its luster
