Critical Facts • Introduction and Growth: Santa Cruz Bicycles (SCB) is a company started in 1993 by a former professional skateboarder Rob Roskopp who teamed with fellow skaters Mike Marquez and Rich Novak. The company evolved from manufacturing “simply advanced” full suspension bikes in 1993 to today’s “cutting edge” performance bikes known for their unique Virtual Pivot Point (VPP) system. (Santa Cruz Bicycles, 2014) A company who had a revenue of $6 million in 1990’s increased its sales by more than 40 percent a year. (Duvall, 2007) • Journey with the new suspension system, VPP: After acquiring the patent for their VPP from Outland Bikes in 1999 (Roskopp, 2001), the first prototype of the frame designed by VPP suspension system after 3 months of design work and 4 months of custom fabrication by outside machine shops. The first test results were devastating and Joe Graney, the engineering manager in one of his interviews said that - "It only took one ride to realize that the thing sucked. Here we were seven months in, a lot of money in the hole, without a bike to bring to market." This failure brought the weakest link in the company’s research and development process into light. (Duvall, 2007) • First prototype, an Eye-opener: Santa Cruz Bicycles soon realized that, to capitalize on its patented VPP technology and ultimately grow the business, it had a find a way to get the designs off the drawing board into prototypes faster. Though the company was using AutoCAD software to render new designs, it was taking too long to have the working prototype machined from vendors. The delays meant that in the event of prototypes failing, designs had to be redeveloped which had a catastrophic effect on company’s finances. (Duvall, 2007)... ... middle of paper ... ...les. (D. Milner, Interviewer) Retrieved from http://www.bikeradar.com/: http://www.bikeradar.com/news/article/interview-rob-roskopp-owner-of-santa-cruz-bicycles--28844/ Santa Cruz Bicycles. (2008). BLUR LT 2008 Release. Retrieved from santacruz-pl.com: http://santacruz-pl.com/attachments/article/71/Old%20BLT2%20Press%20Release.pdf Santa Cruz Bicycles. (2014). Santa Cruz Bicycles. Retrieved from www.santacruzbicycles.com: http://www.santacruzbicycles.com/en/us/company Shepherd, K. (2013, Feb 15). PTC Creo helps Santa Cruz Bicycles grow revenues in a downy economy. Retrieved from creo.ptc.com: http://creo.ptc.com/2013/02/15/ptc-creo-helps-santa-cruz-bicycles-grow-revenues-in-a-down-economy/ Stackpole, B. (2006, Nov 3). Smooth Ride to PLM. Retrieved from www.managingautomation.com: http://www.managingautomation.com/maonline/magazine/read/view/Smooth_Ride_to_PLM_3571735
The first skateboards were made in the 1950’s being used as an exciting activity to take part in when the waves were down. From then and now the sport has changed tremendously, thanks to a group of young skaters from a slum area of Venice Beach or Dog-town, as the locals called it, known as the z-boys in the 1970’s. Even though skateboarding was already known and invented, the z-boys are the ones who made skating famous and took it to new heights in popularity. But how did they do this? The Z-boys made this sport what it is today, and played a very important part in the history and evolution of skateboard style and quality.
Harley-Davidson owns a twenty percent market share followed closely by Honda, Yamaha, and Kawasaki. One thing they have had to overcome in the marketplace is the stereotypical image associated with motorcycle owners. It seems the publ...
The Snurfer was good start, but never really gained traction as anything other than a small hill hobby. It wasn’t til Dimitrije Milovich entered the scene that people started seeing the potential of the snowboard. “Milovich was introduced to snowboarding in 1970 by Wayne Stoveken. Two years later, he dropped out of Cornell University, moved to Utah and started testing his prototype boards.” (MacArthur 1). It was Milovich’s sole desire. During the year of 1974 Dimitrije began making boards in his garage with a few of his close friends. By 1976 he founded the company Winterstick. Under this name Dimitrije ...
...r," in 1885, which he never patented. It had a steerable front wheel that had easier turning, equally sized wheels and a chain drive to the rear wheel. As with the original velocipede, safety bicycles had been much less comfortable than high-wheelers precisely because of the smaller wheel size. Bicycle historians often call this period the "golden age" because many people could ride the bike without dying or injuring themselves.
This case study is about “Specialized Bicycle Components Inc.” known as Ride the Red “S”. Specialized was founded in 1974 by Mike Sinyard. According to Chris Murphy, director of marketing for Red “S”, specialized is for serious riders. He says, “The customer is buying the ride from us, not just the bike.” The company began to produce its own bike parts by 1976, and introduced the first major production mountain bike in the world in 1980.
"Harley-Davidson: At Last" as presented in Hartley's Marketing Mistakes and Successes presents the circumstances around HD's near collapse and since rinse to near mythic success. This case is a great example of marketing myopia; HD saw them-selves as full-size motorcycles' manufactures, not in the transportation, or even the entertainment industry. They believed no one bought motorcycles for transportation, but rather for leisure time use.
Young males, and females are buying HD motorcycles over any other competitor. This thought was accomplished through the introduction of the VRSC’S, and the lower and narrow Sportsters, Dyna’s, Softail’s and positioning them in the market to a younger demographic. Secondly, HD needs to position the VRSC’S, Sporster, Dyna and Softail to also appeal to first time buyers of motorcycles.
Even Steve Jobs predicted that cities would be built around it. So, what went wrong with that? In this essay, the reasons why Segway didn’t do a better job in anticipating the issues that will face the project will be explored. Being a technological piece of art and mechanically robust, sales expectations were high. Segway was predicted to be the fastest company in the open era to hit $ 1 billion dollars in sales and they were so optimistic they erected a 77,000 square feet factory that can produce around 48,000 units per annum with an average price of $ 5000.
he TriFit system was designed by Polar, the technological innovators in heart rate monitors since 1977. Polar, which was once known as Healthfirst, swtiched its name to Polar in the 1990's which is when it developed the firt model of the Trifit software. The first EKG accurate wireless heart rate monitor was invented by Polar back in 1977 as a training tool for the Finnish National Cross Country Ski Team. The concept of "intensity training" by heart rate swept the athletic world in the eighties. By the 1990's individuals were looking to heart rate monitors not only for performance training needs, but also for achieving everyday fitness goals. Today, the same concept of heart rate training is being used by world-class athletes as well as everyday people trying to lose weight.
Jeff, Shel, and a contractor named Paul Barton-Davis built the prototype for Amazon.com in Jeff's garage in Seattle. The garage was heated by an oven in the middle of the room. There were extension cords everywhere. Jeff built desks made from doors that he purchased at Home Depot for sixty dollars each.
In this paper the topic of the Triumph Motorcycle Company’s history will be covered from the very first motorcycle Siegfried Betteman and Muaritz Schulte Betteman built; to the motorcycles the new owner John Bloor and his 600 employees are building at the Hinkley factory in Great Britain. Triumph Motorcycle Company has been overly concerned about the quality and performance of the bikes that leave the shop. With their concern, the company that started from strapping a motor to the downpipe of a bicycle has made it through two world wars and a depression. They changed that simple concept to a highly engineered and well thought out quality bike.
Italian manufacturer Piaggio ranks as one of the world’s top four players in its core business. It has consolidated leadership in the European 2-wheeler market. Piaggio should not miscalculate its competitors. Competition in the industry is very powerful, not only nationally but internationally as well. This is due to two well-established companies in this sector which are the Japanese Yamaha and Honda. Yamaha and Honda strengths are their long-run experience in the sector and the high quality image of products. Due to participations to the motorcycle championships, these two companies constantly receive positive feedbacks to their efforts in researching for first class products. In the future, other kinds of competitors are expected to arise: Chinese companies whose ability to imitate and create similar products at highly competitive prices is getting more and more dangerous (Piaggio, 2008)
Women are seen as still being relatively new in the Harley Davidson world and they are working hard to cultivate these relationship. A common theme is that women are not taken seriously when it comes to the topic of motorcycles. Leslie Prevish, who previously worked for Harley Davidson, is a big promoter of women ridders and created the “garage party” to market to women (Zube, 2013). Harley Davidson understands the needs of women and is therefore marketing deeper to reach these needs and build loyalty with
It has been a decade in the making, but the mountain bike has become a
When I first started robotics, I did not fully understand what an engineer was, and I had some cloudy vision of becoming a police detective in the distant future. However, the more involved I became in the robotics program, the more interested I grew in the whole concept. Being presented with a problem and limitations, such as time constraints, budget constraints, and size and weight constraints, and then have to come up with a feasible design that fits the limitations is an amazing learning experience. However, the process did not end at coming up with a design; in fact, that was just the beginning of a very long road. After the initial design was decided on, us designers spent hours coming up with CAD (computer aided design) mockups, dimensioning every single plane and meticulously going over every centimeter of the virtual version of our robot. With a solid vision in place, construction began and as we learned more about the problem and our own limitations, we were forced to perform small alterations to our design; making it dynamic to fit the ever changing