Well Made in America: Lessons from Harley-Davidson on Being the Best [Paperback]

Peter C. Reid (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1991

An in-depth look at how this group of pioneering owner-managers breathed new life into their company, how they triumphed over financial instability and foreign competition and how they positioned their company for steady future growth. Apart from an exciting turnaround story, this text aims to provide an overall strategy for making an organization the best. It observes the kinds of changes that have to be made in product strategy, marketing, finance, human resources and manufacturing to achieve striking gains in quality, productivity, market share and profitability.

Product Details

• Paperback: 226 pages
• Publisher: Mcgraw-Hill (April 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0070518017
• ISBN-13: 978-0070518018
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,276,233 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How to Succeed in America, November 18, 2003

By 

J. Pluta (Palatine, IL United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Well Made in America: Lessons from Harley-Davidson on Being the Best (Hardcover)

This book gives an excellent glimpse into a company that committed most of the mistakes typical American companies make and found themselves in the same financial straits. But rather than giving in to a me-too attitude of trying to provide an inferior product with cheap foreign labor and cost cutting at every turn, they instead did things the American way - reconnecting with their customer base and creating a unique product that customers were proud to own.

Any company that deals with American consumers ought to have this book on the desk of every manager in the company.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lessons for Manufacturing Organizations, May 1, 2000

By 

Charles Roop (Lebanon,MO USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Well Made in America: Lessons from Harley-Davidson on Being the Best (Hardcover)

This is an excellant example of a company that was near bankruptcy and able to pull itself together, reinvent itself, and again is a world class company. Many of the things that transpired with Harley can be subsituted into our business today. The culture of Harley is so unique that many people have the Harley Logo tatooed on their bodies! This is one of the best American business success stories I have read. Many ideas that were used to regain market share would help alot of manufacturing companies today if they follow a similar path as the Harley Execs did. In my oponion, Harley is right up there with baseball and apple pie. This story translates what people can accomplish when they have common goals.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars good summary of HD, but a fluff piece, April 2, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Well Made in America: Lessons from Harley-Davidson on Being the Best (Paperback)

This book is OK (the last section is the best, in my opinion), but suffers from two problems: it seems to jump around alot and it is also pretty much a fluff piece.

The book starts out trying to describe the management changes that occured at HD, then spends many pages discussing the various finance issues that came up when the management bought HD from it's parent company, then goes into sales issues then back to management issues. So, is this supposed to be a historical record or a management book? It does not devote enough time to either topic to do either subject justice.

Also, this book is in my opinion a fluff piece. All of H-D's strengths are glorified while their weaknesses are rationalized away by saying that "everyone does it" (ex, H-D's earlier management was bad, but so was every other US company's).

The last section on how to implement these changes into your company is good. If the rest of the book was written in this format it would have been much better.