New York, N.Y. and Barrington, Ill. -- Harley-Davidson celebrates its 100th Anniversary with The Open Road Tour, and ATA Carnet is making it affordable. It covers ten cities from July 2002 to July 2003, starting in Atlanta, with shows in Baltimore, Los Angeles, Toronto, Dallas, Sydney, Tokyo, Barcelona, Hamburg and ending back at headquarters in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Forty container loads and 10,000 items are traveling in “the world’s largest rolling birthday party,” making for quite a logistical challenge.
As Harley-Davidson (H-D) and freight forwarder Eagle Global Logistics prepared for the international leg of the tour, they considered how to carry out the intricate job of temporarily importing thousands of items into multiple countries.
They found an answer in ATA Carnet. The use of Carnets would not only eliminate the duties and taxes but also reduce the delays and costs of physically crossing borders. Everything including classic bikes, artifacts, motorcycle parts and the equipment needed to mount the global party would be going to eight venues. Total values might reach $16,000,000 or more. The cost of depositing duties and taxes would have been enormous. ATA Carnet allowed Harley Davidson to confidently step back from this aspect of the event and concentrate on other tour and show business.
“The importance of this event to Harley-Davidson goes without saying,” noted Allen Clam, Director Global Logistics Purchasing, Planning and Control of H-D. “The ‘crew’ that we have assembled is absolutely essential to always doing whatever is required to get the job done right the first time. We have come to depend upon [this] organization for needed carnet and customs support.”
One of USCIB’s Carnet service providers, the Corporation for International Business, helped them design a viable Carnet program for the tour. The carnet and customs expertise became indispensable to the project. CIB worked with the H-D web-based inventory system to convert the inventory in a Carnet General List format. This provided multiple location access to the thousands of General List items and transmission of the vital electronic data to foreign and U.S. Customs. As a result, a typical 3-day border crossing into Canada took 3 hours.
USCIB promotes an open system of global commerce. Its membership includes some 300 leading U.S. companies, professional services firms and associations whose combined annual revenues exceed $3 trillion. With a unique network of affiliations to international business groups, USCIB facilitates international trade by issuing and guaranteeing ATA Carnets, and by promoting international cooperation in such areas as customs policies and commercial dispute resolution.
Contacts:
Cynthia Duncan, VP Carnet Operations, USCIB
(212) 703-5079 or cduncan@uscib.org
Leslie Levy, Corporation for International Business
(650) 566-0727 or llevy@atacarnet.com
More on USCIB’s ATA Carnet Export Service
