Business Change and Re-engineering最新文献

This paper presents the results of a survey of UK practitioners of BPR. It examines their perceptions of what BPR is, reports on how they are conducting their various BPR initiatives, and analyses the driving forces behind these initiatives. The survey results are compared with the existing theoretical and conceptual literature. It is clear that practitioners have adopted some of the early published tenets of BPR (such as a focus on process improvement), whilst generally rejecting others (such as the imperative of ‘starting over’). Finally the paper considers the implication of these findings and suggests a direction for future research.

This paper describes the initial stages of a long-term process improvement project at Petrolite, a medium sized chemical manufacturer. The project is being used by Petrolite to test the principles of process redesign. The case study describes the overall process architecture for the business and also provides examples of the use of Role Activity Diagramming as an approach to process modelling.

Recent excitement and hype about Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) fails to concern itself with many of the details of the phenomenon itself. The concept of ‘process’ is ill-defined, as are the mechanisms for initiating and completing re-engineering exercises. Furthermore, however much the originators and proponents of BPR may protest, BPR in use is seen all too often as a covert way of downsizing (itself a polite euphemism for redundancy) whilst simultaneously loading further responsibility and demands on those staff who manage to retain their fixed-term positions. BPR is associated with obliteration and ruthlessness, but not in quite the ways Hammer and Champy would have us assume. The authors believe that many criticisms of BPR are well founded, but that some of the underlying principles and motivations of re-engineering retain their value if understood against a wider perspective of ‘Goal Directed Development’.

Many companies regard restructuring their central processes as a means of strengthening their competitive position. The methods developed by research institutes and consultancy firms often display fundamental differences. As a result, many companies are unsure how they ought to proceed. This paper gives an overview of the methods currently available for designing business processes. Following an example comparing two of the methods, it then presents a criteria catalogue highlighting the most significant similarities and differences between the 12 methods under examination. It also sheds light on some crucial issues of method design.

Business process re-engineering (BPR) is a recent change phenomenon that has grabbed the attention of those working in public sector and private sector organizations. In the organizational sense BPR is identified as a key strategic initiative for achieving business improvement in the 1990s. The failure rate of such initiatives once undertaken, however, is reported to be quite high. Why should that be? This article provides some evidence as to why this could be the case. It draws on current literature which centres on three key issues, namely: classifying, planning and managing a BPR initiative. Each of these issues is discussed. There is also a lack of empirical evidence of the importance of these issues and the difficulties organisations face when undertaking a BPR initiative. It is all very well indicating a methodology should be followed for such an initiative, yet there is no indication as to how difficult it is to implement each stage of the methodology. Hence, the Information Systems Research Centre, based at Cranfield School of Management, wished to address these issues. The Centre undertook a survey of managers working in the public and private sector attending a symposium on BPR. Five success factors were identified as key to the successful implementation of a BPR initiative, namely: (1) induction; (2) providing skills; (3) commitment to the project; (4) changing roles and systems; and (5) changing culture, attitudes and behaviour. The relative importance, difficulties and implications of these are discussed.