Taking the leap from building custom bikes to manufacturing a line of production motorcycles requires change. Expensive, time-consuming and gut-wrenching change.

Making the jump from buying and assembling components to vertically integrating your entire manufacturing process, controlling everything from the design to final assembly, from sourcing materials to fabrication? That's what antacids are for.

Big Bear Choppers has been on a growth kick since its beginnings in the back of a small Kawasaki shop in Southern California's San Bernardino mountains: an investment of Kevin and Mona Alsop's time, life and money.

Just as expanding the business into consecutively larger locations was a calculated risk, taking a turn toward manufacturing was a run at something bigger. From the days of selling Custom Chrome kit bikes to its current network of about 80 dealers, 14 kit bikes, 15 ready-to-ride models and line of P&A, Big Bear Choppers has been an exercise in ambition.

With their business model firmly in place, Kevin and Mona are injecting lean manufacturing techniques into the business with an eye toward dealer profits and motorcycling's 800 lb. gorilla — Harley-Davidson.

This hasn't been easy.

"It was painful. It was hard. I screwed a lot of shit up. I had to throw a lot of shit away," says Kevin, an Australian expatriate who started the company with Mona in 1998. "I just had to learn the hard way."

But with his lean manufacturing engineers in place, his fixturing built better and his processes sussed out, he's now building 120 frame sets a month out of his fab shop. That's frames, tanks, fenders, swing arms, handlebars — everything — with 56 fabrication and CNC employees.

"Two years ago I was building 40 units a month with the same amount of people. Not only am I building more, it's of a higher quality by a long shot," Kevin says.

"That's real manufacturing. That's what gets me excited."

The goal, he explains, is to keep everything in-house so BBC not only has tight reins on quality, but also controls the design and engineering of its vehicles, allowing the company flexibility in production. In fact, the X-Wedge-powered Paradox that debuts as a 2008 model was planned and executed entirely in CAD.

The company also machines or builds its own lower fork legs, triple trees, front axles, front and rear fenders, handlebars, gas caps, frames, oil tanks, oil tank caps, chain guards, swing arms, kick stands, primary drives, forward controls, rear master cylinders and exhaust brackets.

Kevin says the company is working with S&S Cycle to develop another motor proprietary to BBC and has designs on making its own handlebar controls. The engine company already builds the 100 Smooth for BBC.

"The more that you can make in-house, the better you are off, period," he says.

PRICE IS THE POINT

With the company controlling most steps of the manufacturing process — and making them more efficient through lean building techniques, it can start pushing down the invoice cost for dealers, allowing them to be more competitive. BBC now can build about 100 bikes a month. By next year it's shooting for 300 a month, a milestone that will allow the company to produce and sell a custom motorcycle for under $20,000.