Subject: Industrial Engineering And Management

Topic: Work System Design

Difficulty: Medium

The flowchart for implementing BPR is shown in Fig.

Step 1:Developing process vision and determining process objectives:

The objective of reengineering is to provide competitive advantage to the organization. So the starting point of BPR is organizations business vision and from the vision the processes that have to be the best in the world are derived in order to realize the vision.

This is a focus phase which demands the top management involvement to arrive at an objective. The process selected for reengineering may be to become number one company in its business in next 10 years.

Thus, the vision or focus phase has to take place at a senior executive level where the business is perceived as an integrated whole.

Step 2:Defining process to be reengineered:

This phase starts with identification of critical activities within the processes in consultation with top management, process attributes (cost, quality and time) and process measures (results) to be achieved.

The setting up of bench marks (standards) for processes and sub-processes is essential to control and ensure process outcome. Identification of processes with clarity and defining the boundaries and measures is difficult task.

Step 3: Understanding the measuring existing process:

The detailed information on how the existing process works and what are the weaknesses of the present system and about the process measures are sought.

This step makes the concerns people clear about the term like delay, response, waiting time and non value addition, etc. this analysis automatically creates dissatisfaction about the existing process.

Step 4: identifying information technology (IT) leverage:

The reengineering achieves the improvement through effective and innovative deployment of information technology. Thus the assistance if IT is sought to simplify the processes.

Step 5: designing, building and implementing a prototype of new process:

This is crucial step in reengineering. The top management should provide enough resources in terms of personal skills and technology, thus, creating a conducive climate of implementation. The prototypes of suggested processes are made and the users try out the new system to give their comments. The practicability of the design, its working limitations are addressed at this stage.

To implement, the reengineering process should be owned by the people manning them for success. Sometimes, the facilitator does this job linking people concerned and the reengineered process.