Harley-Davidson manufactures high-end motorcycles and sells them worldwide. The

Question

                    Harley-Davidson manufactures high-end motorcycles and sells them worldwide. The company sells more than $4 billion in motorcycles and                     related products each year, and has one of the most recognized brands in the world. However, business was not always so good for the company. In the 1980s, the                     company was on the brink of bankruptcy. Facing increasing competition from Japanese and German manufacturers, Harley-Davidson had allowed its quality standards                     and cost controls to slip. In a legendary business turnaround, the company rebuilt itself. Harley-Davidson completely changed its supply chain to fulfill the                     expectations of its brand-aware customers.                 

                    Over a period of several years, Harley-Davidson reduced its number of suppliers from 4000 to fewer than 350. More important, it began to work with those                     suppliers to reduce costs throughout the supply chain. Each supplier is expected to find ways (with the help and cooperation of Harley-Davidson) to reduce                     manufacturing costs and improve quality every year. This was the only way Harley-Davidson believed it could avoid moving its factories to lower-cost locations                     in other countries. The efforts paid off and the company still manufactures its motorcycles only in the United States.                 

                    In 2000, the company decided to focus its cost reduction and quality improvement efforts on its information technology infrastructure. Because it had been so                     successful in working with its suppliers to reduce manufacturing costs and improve quality, Harley-Davidson wanted to do the same thing with information                     technology. By using Internet technologies to share information throughout the supply chain, the company hoped to find opportunities for efficiencies and cost                     reductions at all stages of the process of creating motorcycles.                 

                    When the company first talked with its suppliers about its information technology initiative, those suppliers noted that each of Harley-Davidson

Explanation / Answer

RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) has been touted as a major breakthrough in the supply chain operations. At this stage, there are still a limited number of academic studies assessing the potential of RFID for organizations. Based on a literature analysis, this paper summarizes the business drivers which are triggering the RFID adoption. Although, RFID has many benefits in the shape of reduced labor costs, improved inventory management, and more supply chain visibility, yet, at the same time, RFID presents itself as a costly successor to bar codes. The paper concludes that how companies respond over the next two to three years will determine eventual success or failure of RFID.

Supply Chain Management (SCM) is a set of approaches to efficiently integrate suppliers, manufactures, warehouses, and stores, so that merchandise is produced and distributed at the right quantities, to the right locations, and at the right time, in order to minimize system wide costs while satisfying service level requirements [1]. Many companies are becoming aware of the importance of SCM for their company

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