Title of Case: Case Study Point Paper – Santa Cruz Bicycles

Date: September 28th, 2020

Your Name: Alexandre Humberto Batista de Oliveira

Case Study Point Paper – Santa Cruz Bicycles

I. Introduction

Launched in 1994, Santa Cruz Bicycles is a mountain bike manufacturer based in Santa

Cruz, California. It is a very well-known company for its great technologies, providing

top of the line solutions for its design and suspensions. Santa Cruz Bicycles has been

changing the way they design their products, increasing it even more their quality and

processes.

II. Critical Facts

 Operation is done by just a few employees. It is based on 25 people.

 Santa Cruz Bicycles spends a considerable time and resources on their research team,

always looking for a better solution for their production.

 The company designed a successful technology called Virtual Pivot Point, a suspension

system that absorbs even more the impact of the mountain bikes.

 Since 1999, the company holds the patent for the Virtual Pivot Point, the VPP.

 In the beginning, Santa Cruz Bicycles were using a computer-aided-design software

that were taking a long time to develop a new design, harming the time and finances of

the company.

 After finding a new PLM system to help the production process, a simulation that once

took 7 hours to process, is now taking minutes.

 The software also helped the engineers to make quicker adjustments to the prototypes.
 Title of Case: Case Study Point Paper – Santa Cruz Bicycles
Date: September 28th, 2020
Your Name: Alexandre Humberto Batista de Oliveira

 Searching for a better overall process, Santa Cruz Bicycles hired new team members

such as the new master frame builder and upgraded their machines, making all the

process inside their facilities. This process was previously outsourced.

 This change resulted in a difference of approximately14 months of production.

 On July 3, 2015, the company was sold to Pon Holdings, joining brands like Focus and

Royal Dutch Gazelle.

III. Analysis

The Santa Cruz Bicycles company is one of the best name brands when the topic

“Mountain Bikes” is brought to the table. Since 1993, the team formed by Rob Roskopp,

Mike Marquez and Rich Novak were always motivated to bring the best service since

the day one, trying to develop the most comfortable ride with new technologies.

Their 25-people based company were using a CAD software to help with their research

and development of their new models, taking more than seven months for all the

processes to be done, without considering the fact a design could failed – which would

end in new start over. With the amount of time and money lost during a new

development, this process was considered as not ideal for the company, resulting in a

deep search for a solution.

Big decisions were made and the company decided to implement a whole new system

and adopt a crucial change: stop outsourcing one of their processes. Santa Cruz

implemented a Product Life Cycle Management system (PLM), which helped the team

to analyze and model capabilities in a robust manner, increasing the simulation process.
 Title of Case: Case Study Point Paper – Santa Cruz Bicycles
Date: September 28th, 2020
Your Name: Alexandre Humberto Batista de Oliveira

The second big change was to hire a new master frame builder, which lead to the

fabrication of prototypes parts inside their own company.

This successful and incremental move to the whole process resulted in a dramatic

change to the speed of the production. The simulation process that in the past used to

take more than seven months is now taking minutes to be done, thanks to the new PLM

software, and the overall fabrication process that used to take 28 months, decreased to

more than half, being done in approximately 12 months.

IV. Conclusions

We can all agree that after the analysis of the case, two main things that happened can

be highlighted: a software implementation and a management change.

Both big changes helped Santa Cruz Bicycles to improve their production time and

costs. Even though the implementation of a new software was really important of this

improvement, I believe that the whole change can be given thanks to the management

transformation, which joined the PLM implementation, the hire of the new master frame

builder and acquisition of a previous outsourced process, the fabrication of prototypes.

V. Recommendations

The example that Santa Cruz Bicycles gives of how important the research department

is and why a company should never stop looking for a better solution for their processes

is something that all companies should learn from, regardless the size.

I cannot stop to think that this is case is of a high success, and would only agree that

Santa Cruz should continue with the work of always research for the best.
 Title of Case: Case Study Point Paper – Santa Cruz Bicycles
Date: September 28th, 2020
Your Name: Alexandre Humberto Batista de Oliveira

References

 Pearlson, K., & Saunders, C. (2012). Managing and using information systems a

strategic approach, 4th edition (5th Ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons;

 Santa Cruz Bicycles https://www.santacruzbicycles.com/en-US/about-us

 Santa Cruz Bicycles, Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Cruz_Bicycles