Hello everyone,,
Took a tour of the Harley Davidson factory in York PA today. It was an insiders tour as part of a manufacturer's counsel. If you haven't been there recently, they undertook a multimillion dollar update and renovation of the facility since 2010.
It is now an incredibly modern and advanced production facility. I've been in a lot of factories worldwide, and this is truly in the top five. They use the latest in lean manufacturing and just in time production, process improvement and quality control, robots and automation, and modular production cells. It is impressive.
Even more impressive are the people. To a person, they care about quality and the Harley way. You can just see that they all care deeply about what they are making and they treat each bike like it was their own.
And the bikes. Oh man the bikes! The 2014 models are gorgeous. They make the Soft Tails, Touring, Trikes and CVO bikes. They all commingle on the same production line, each bike that passes is different from the last. And even though they use laser-guides robots for welding and some pin striping, there are still people hand-lining tanks, slikscreening and welding certain things. If it needs to be custom or specialized, a craftsman does it by hand. So cool.
With or without the Harley mystique, it is a great example of how good Made in America can be. I can't wait to ride, and I can't wait to buy my own Harley someday..
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