Harley let quality rot — the cure was on Honda's factory floor
By 1980 over half of Harley's bikes failed inspection; Honda's failed 5%. The cure came from touring Honda's Ohio plant and copying its floor, not its bikes.
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2,000 PUBLISHED CASES · REGULARLY UPDATEDQuicksilver Resources filed Chapter 11 with $2.35B of debts — its assets sold for $245M
The family-run Fort Worth gas producer sold a quarter of its Barnett Shale core and borrowed at 11% — then natural gas prices never recovered.
Read the caseFujisash returned parts uninspected and parked 7,789 idle molds on 46 suppliers
The Kawasaki aluminum-sash maker's intake covered packaging and part numbers only — 'defective' returns, free sorting and free mold warehousing followed.
Read the caseHeinz sold toddler snacks as 99% fruit and veg — they were two-thirds sugar
Heinz claimed its Little Kids Shredz snacks benefited toddlers while its own nutritionists should have known the sugary pitch was misleading. Penalty: A$2.25M.
Read the caseFerrari lost two CEOs in two years — and had a successor ready for neither
Marchionne's death put a tobacco executive in charge. Two and a half years later he quit with no successor named — the chairman had to run the company himself.
Read the caseLuxgen was Taiwan's homegrown car brand — spent billions, sold 787M to Foxtron in 2025
Yulon Group's NT$9.8B car brand launched in 2009 with grand ambitions, never found a market outside Taiwan, and was sold for a fraction of its investment.
Read the caseThe first US professor jailed for research fraud — 17 grants built on fake data
Eric Poehlman falsified data in 17 NIH grant applications and 10 papers. He was the first US academic sent to prison for it.
Read the caseWilko survived 93 years on the high street — and missed every reason to change
Cheaper rivals, a credit insurer pulling cover, and 408 stores where 250 would do. In August 2023 the 93-year-old chain had six weeks to close them all.
Read the caseJumbo Kingdom, Hong Kong's floating restaurant, closed after HK$100M losses and capsized
Jumbo Floating Restaurant hosted 30M guests including Queen Elizabeth II. Unprofitable since 2013, it closed in 2020 and capsized at sea.
Read the caseKonrad Zuse rebuilt his computer company alone — over-indebted, he lost it, and his name
After 1945 Zuse rebuilt his computer firm with no state or bank behind it. In 1964 over-indebtedness took his shares; in 1971 the name Zuse KG was deleted.
Read the caseWestLB lost $820M on German share bets — the trade that began the bank's dismantling
Germany's state-owned WestLB bet on the gap between common and preferred shares — and lost so much the bank was eventually broken up.
Read the caseEight brands cut Park Na-rae within weeks of her former manager's demands
A dispute with her ex-manager emptied Park Na-rae's portfolio: Samsung, American Tourister, Lotte ON and five more cut her, losses above 10 billion won.
Read the caseChange Healthcare: one MFA-less login let hackers stall US healthcare for weeks
Attackers entered a Citrix portal with no MFA, spent nine days inside, and their ransomware froze US medical claims and pharmacy payments nationwide.
Read the caseHawker Beechcraft: a peak-of-market $3.3B LBO that ended in 2012 Chapter 11
Goldman Sachs and Onex bought Raytheon's plane maker at the top of the aviation cycle with maximum leverage - five years later the jets themselves had to go.
Read the caseJuewei underreported revenue for five years — China's 'duck neck king' got ST'd
The snack giant hid ¥700M in revenue over five years, was slapped with an ST warning and lost ¥50B in market cap
Read the caseNYX Cosmetics closed its 5 Hong Kong stores as a 'business strategy readjustment'
L'Oréal's trendy makeup brand pulled out of Hong Kong and Macau in August 2020, three years after entering, citing a strategy readjustment.
Read the caseIntel bet on a foundry comeback — then changed CEOs and cut 15% of staff
Intel's manufacturing revival plan ran ahead of demand: a $10B cost programme, a suspended dividend and a CEO exit followed.
Read the caseUMC's Super A'Can lost $6M — Taiwan's homegrown console that lasted six months
UMC's Super A'Can, launched 1995 against the PlayStation, sold so poorly that UMC destroyed the tooling and sold the units as scrap.
Read the caseCharles Goodyear's rubber-sulfur mix fell on a hot stove — and changed the world
Goodyear spent five years trying to stabilize rubber. In 1839, sulfur-rubber fell on a hot stove. It charred — and stayed flexible. He called it vulcanization.
Read the caseRubio's put fish tacos on America's map — and filed bankruptcy twice in four years
Founded on a San Diego beach in 1983, down to 86 stores by 2024. Work-from-home emptied the lunch crowd; California's $20 minimum wage did the rest.
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