Newmar President Matt Miller to Retire, Winnebago VP takes over

[Traveltime09]

Doesn’t own Chris craft boats? If so what changes did they make to that company?

[PetesMH]

All this worry! Does it make you feel better to scare people? Will it change anything? It is what it is and let’s all just make the best of it.

[palehorse89]

"The Sky is Falling".......... All Humans take cover..............!

[aeroquality]

I have seen this in my industry. Indeed, changing the President from the original company to a leader from the acquisition company is the mark of the takeover. The announcement notes the rest of the leadership team will remain - but from my experience most are changed very quickly. By the 90 day mark, the other changes will start. No doubt the mission will be to increase sales, as well as return on sales. I like a lot of aspects of how Winnebago does business, but we have not purchased one because the look and feel has been cheap and the layouts very plain. Perhaps a positive could be if Winnebago service centers start supporting Newmar. We need a much stronger service network and availability. The idea having to drive to the factory to fix defects is nuts.

[tmandoug1]

Who owned Itasca?

[arcaguy]

When I see things like "high energy, customer focused, results driven manager focused on increased revenue and profits" or words to that effect I get nervous. The idea that a good manager can manage any company has not proven to be true over the years, just look at some of the disasters in the private equity companies. The top line of a company is difficult to grow without acquisitions, it's darn tough to grow revenue by taking market share. Since the top line is difficult to grow the only way to increase profit is to cut expenses, this usually means head count or cheapening the product. It will be interesting to see what happens but I'm not optimistic. I saw the consolidation in the Internet industry up close and personal and I can't say I was impressed by the consolidators. Time will tell.

[tmandoug1]

Originally Posted by arcaguy

When I see things like "high energy, customer focused, results driven manager focused on increased revenue and profits" or words to that effect I get nervous. The idea that a good manager can manage any company has not proven to be true over the years, just look at some of the disasters in the private equity companies. The top line of a company is difficult to grow without acquisitions, it's darn tough to grow revenue by taking market share. Since the top line is difficult to grow the only way to increase profit is to cut expenses, this usually means head count or cheapening the product. It will be interesting to see what happens but I'm not optimistic. I saw the consolidation in the Internet industry up close and personal and I can't say I was impressed by the consolidators. Time will tell.

"Since the top line is difficult to grow the only way to increase profit is to cut expenses".

Perfect statement!

The only thing peolpe need to see and learn to understand......companies also sell square footage of their properties to show profit so they don't lose footing in Wall Street.

[NXR]

Read the “About”

Being a retired manufacturing guy, let me tell you the jobs that get cut to get from 50% to 11% of SGA is a train load of people!

Lean manufacturing totally eliminates craftsmanship.

Product quality often improves with Lean processes, but again… the models, options, and choices are history.

You can take it to the bank, the non warranty repair, and working on older models is history. Look into what repair centers Winnebago has…..none.

50% Sales, General, and Administrative expense is positively obscene in any industry. That company was way out of control.

I was a Lean Six Sigma Blackbelt in manufacturing and yes, a tremendous amount of non-value added work got eliminated. That's also known as "waste". Lean manufacturing produces quality products that a majority of people are willing to pay for, not the products that take a similar level of effort to produce for a much smaller number of buyers.

A company cannot stay in business providing the same level of services to older models as current models. Owners of older models are known as "former customers", not "customers".

Ray

[NXR]

"Since the top line is difficult to grow the only way to increase profit is to cut expenses".

Perfect statement!

It's not the only way but it makes sense. Consider a company with a profit margin of 10%, which is actually very high for a manufacturer.

They need to sell $100,000 worth of product to create $10,000 worth of profit.

So cutting $10,000 worth of expense is the same as selling $100,000 worth of product but better. Why? Because production capacity and pieces-parts are not used up so capacity is actually created. And cutting that $10,000 of expense carries over to each subsequent year.

Ray

[joes2901]

Originally Posted by tmandoug1

"Since the top line is difficult to grow the only way to increase profit is to cut expenses".

Perfect statement!

The only thing peolpe need to see and learn to understand......companies also sell square footage of their properties to show profit so they don't lose footing in Wall Street.

If business ethics still involved "right vs wrong" instead of "what can we get away with", product quality and customer satisfaction would be important to management. Cost, effort, and skilled employees can make a company a market leader and own 50 to 70% of the market.

If Newmar used high quality and long life components, and the employees believed they would buy one if they could afford it, and had pride in a job well done that would be a major improvement. Employee turnover would drop and the cost of product decrease because the more skilled employees built better products with fewer defects and warranty costs. Warranty costs would drop and the warranty could be extended to 2 or 3 years because it would not cost much more. Sales and market % would increase because customers would see that Newmar had confidence in the quality of their products, not just sales slogans. Talk is cheap.

Newmar seems to have been going the other way. Customers experience a longer wait for orders to be built and defect repairs before the customer picks up their new RV at the factory. They pay the higher cost in the hope that they will not suffer the 3 to 6 months of out of service for warranty repairs at an incompetent dealer. Delays in getting service. parts, and incompetent workmanship at dealers benefit Newmar because the warranty will expire before the new RV can be thoroughly used and tested.

A purchasing department that searches for the cheapest parts buys bad batches of faulty motors in MCD shades, LED lights, inadequate front axles, etc. which increases warranty cost and irritates customers and some may never want a Newmar again. Long and longer waits for warranty and regular service at the factory benefit Newmar with warranty expiration but anger customers.

RV owners complain about inadequate air conditioning during 100+ degree weather. Installing a QD 10000 would support 3 15KW air conditioners in 40' or less RVs and cost $1,100 and 350 extra pounds versus the QD 8000 and 2 air conditioners. The Entegra 40' Reatta XL does it. Adding vehicle safety equipment (like Toyota and Honda do) to Newmar RVs would benefit ageing drivers. For example, the Renegade Verona includes the Freightliner safety equipment and it costs less than most or all of Newmars diesel RVs. Newmar's diesel RVs are getting heavier and the NCCC shrinks without front axle upgrades to maintain at least 8,000 lbs of NCCC. It is much worse for the gas powered RVs. I want a Cummins L9 (380 or 400 HP and 1,250 torque) in the now heavy Ventana 3717 but Newmar dones not seem interested in beating the competition with cusomer satisfaction. Entegra, Tiffen, and Renagade have L9 engines in lighter weight RVs.

Winnebago, don't run Newmar into the ground for maximum profits. Instead make Newmar RVs roll out of the factory with features and real objective quality, that you would want it the RV was yours, and results in happy and repeat customers, and sets new higher standards for the industry.

[Chargersrt8]

It has been a long career for me. I have seen this and experienced it three times. Firt

[Chargersrt8]

Sorry fat fingers. It has been a long career for me and I have been through this three times.
The first thing that happens is what we are seeing, integration of senior management.
Then reduction of duplicate support resources, SG&A.
Then supply chain integration and reduction of duplicate suppliers, sometimes quality is sacrificed to reduce cost.That depends on how strong procurement is.
Then common manufacturing is optimized. Manufacturing jobs are lost on both sides. Also they will look at where product lines overlap and some will be eliminated.

The overall hope is they keep a balance of quality and cost and cater to the customers they want to attract to what products. From the inexpensive to the expensive high end quality products.

I am currently a Sr VP of Sales Marketing and Business Development for a large company. My team is focused on the ultimate customer to meet their needs, both new and retained customers. I on the other hand is focused on the internal customer. Engineering Manufacturing and Service to make sure they are driving as well to meeting customer needs. Always spending my budget to pay the internal costs to maintain customer satisfaction. The easiest customer to sell to is a satisfied current customer.

I am betting on them trying to keep me as a customer.

[NCC-1701A]

Originally Posted by DGBPokes

Read the “About”

Being a retired manufacturing guy, let me tell you the jobs that get cut to get from 50% to 11% of SGA is a train load of people!

Lean manufacturing totally eliminates craftsmanship.

Product quality often improves with Lean processes, but again… the models, options, and choices are history.

You can take it to the bank, the non warranty repair, and working on older models is history. Look into what repair centers Winnebago has…..none.

DGB....As far as I know, Newmar has ONE factory service center....so does Winnebago.

https://www.winnebago.com/lifestyle/...service-center

SG&A is not manufacturing cost. That's Sales, General, and Administrative. All the people building the units is in Cost of Goods Sold above the gross profit line. That said, a HUGE drop in SG&A could be concerning if it means the service aspect of a business suffers. But when corporations merge operations, lots of "general and administrative" activities can be done with far fewer people.

I will take a wait and see position on what happens. As we all know from various posts on this forum, Newmar may be good and may be one of the better coach builders, but they also have their issues....sometimes serious issues....and have had them since long before Winnebago became involved.

[Ebwhite]

This is definitely a change in newmar. Atleast tiffin brought in the grandson to run it as grandpa did since the beginning. Newmar will just become a high end version of a winnie. Sucks to see this happen…mark my word in 2 years it will look much different