Honda Power Equipment is a leader in the development of low-emission, fuel efficient, environmentally friendly 4-stroke engines for use in generators, water pumps, lawn mowers, outboard motors, and many other power equipment applications.
HPE does not have a mission statement per say but they do have a principle of maintaining a global view point. HPE is dedicated to supplying products of the highest quality yet at a reasonable price for worldwide customer satisfaction. In addition, as a business, Honda does not believe in laying anyone off. Once an employee has a job at Honda, they have a job for life.
HPE only sells its products at its own stores and at Home Depot. Therefore, Home Depot is their biggest customer. From there, the people who buy HPE’s products are typically new home owners or people looking to replace/buy new engines. Interestingly, another major customer of HPE products is the competition.
HPE’s customers value high-quality products that will last a long time. The main thing that Honda has over its competitors is the high-quality of its engines. Our presenter emphasized the fact that most of his neighbors have had their Honda engine lawn mowers for 15 years. Most other lawn mowers need to be replaced after at least 3-5 years.
HPE has been very successful with results. It has been in production for 30 years. Plus, in 2013, sales were $284 million. People look to HPE to provide high-quality engines with a long lifetime.
The future plan for HPE is always to upgrade its products, develop new features that people care about, and to generally make products nicer and more user-friendly. Another goal is to reduce production costs and to increase revenue.
Today’s visit was eye opening because I have seen lawn mowers but I have never seen the work that goes into making them. I couldn’t believe the number of people that were needed in an assembly line to create the engines. Prior to visiting HPE, I assumed most of the assembly was done by machines. Seeing all of the workers in the assembly line, I’m appreciative of their dedication to working long hours while standing, doing the same motion every 12 or so seconds. The resulting quality is very high, making HPE successful.
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