Reengineering Business Processes

The major objectives of business process reengineering efforts include but are not limited to:

• Breaking out of the current improvement cycle

• Thinking beyond today's norm

• Significantly challenging the organization

• Seeking the greatest rewards and benefits through reengin-eered processes

• Achieving quantum change in business performance

In addition to the objectives stated above, there are generally three compelling reasons for an organization to enter into a reengineer­ing effort. First, and likely most motivating, they are forced to do so. These are organizations that must improve performance significantly or go out of business. Next there are the organiza­tions that see the need to change in order to obtain a competitive advantage. They are on not the brink of extinction nor are they the leader in their particular industry or niche. Lastly there are the innovators, these are organizations that are currently world-class and their purpose for reengineering is to maintain their current market leader position. They are building a barrier or wall over which their competitors will have a difficult time scaling.

The use of business process reengineering requires a process view of the enterprise. The development of a process view requires acquiring a detailed understanding of business processes including knowledge of:

• Markets and channels

• Rates of change

• Products and services

• Resource consumption

• Suppliers

• Cycle time

• Levels and functions

• Output quality

• Competitive position

• Productivity

Business process reengineering is a technique that can work for any organization in any industry segment. Process, discrete manufacturing, service industries have all experienced successful reengineering implementations—nor are reengineering activities limited to the shop floor or manufacturing operations. They are just as adaptable to the white collar, front office processes as they are to the shop floor. In fact, this is one of the critical elements to having a process view of your enterprise, all activities associ­ated with core processes must be fair game for reengineering efforts. The key is to be willing to challenge basic company assumptions aggressively, including:

• Organization design

• Policy and procedure design

• Current business operating environment

Almost all successful reengineering efforts contain some element of each of the following:

1. An intensive focus on the customer, their real needs and expectations and those activities or enablers that will support the attainment of FCS (full customer satisfaction).

2. A fundamental rethinking of the approaches and methods 

used to accomplish work tasks (processes), which lead to level of magnitude improvements in cycle time and pro­ductivity.

3. The development of an organization structure that supports the redesigned process vision by providing responsibility and authority for all process activities within a single organizational entity. This requires breaking from the traditional functional organization concept and migrating to an organizational structure that is more cross-functional in form.

4. A series of technological innovations that assist or enable the process to achieve desired targets. It is important that reengineering efforts focus on the process and do not become viewed as systems projects. However, the creative use of technology is by far the most powerful avenue available to assist in radically changing (and improving) an organization's processes.

5. A leader who is a senior executive who authorizes and motivates the overall reengineering effort. The leader need not be involved in the day to day activities associated with the project but must be committed enough to the effort that they will break down internal barriers, act as a visionary, motivate and lead by persuading employees to become a part of the effort.