Business Process Redesign Or Reengineering

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Business Process Redesign or Reengineering

Business Process Redesign (BPR) or Reengineering is "the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical, contemporary measures of performance, such as cost, quality, service, and speed" (Hammer and Champy, Reengineering). Since the BPR idea has surfaced it has been under constant ridicule by the popular press.
They say it takes far too long, creates management headaches, fails 70% of the time, and it's only for big companies with big checkbooks (Hydrel...). However,
I feel that with the right plan, the right people, and total commitment from those involved, BPR or Reengineering can work for any company.

The Hydrel Experience

A good example of this is Hydrel, a manufacturer of in-ground and underwater lighting equipment. They were about to begin selling their products in the international market, and were afraid their current systems could handle the rapid increase in volume. So the company president, Craig Jennings, hired the D. Appleton Company (DACOM) to help reengineer the company's plans to handle its growth rate. After DACOM reviewed Hydrel's functional areas and the desires of the top-level management, they concluded that the order management and inventory control process had to be redesigned to meet the demands.
Then they comprised three teams: process, quality, and information. But before the three teams could work separately, they had to go through a process to determine if the team members were on the right team, and if they could work together. So each of the three teams reviewed employee personalities using the
Pearson Personality Inventory (Hydrel...). After using the PPI system they found that all the teams were compatible, and began working on the job at hand.
The process team attacked the reengineering of the "Manage Customer
Order" process which included all contact with prospects, customers, and sales agents the moment a question came up. Then they invited customers and suppliers to air their own issues and ideas about their company. All of them had something to say about the company and were impressed with the reengineering effort. The Hydrel process team concluded its redesign work with a de...

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...harts, all projects cost/benefit analyses, and the implementation of strategies. The benefits of this process were significant: 16,000 ideas, 1005 projects, 1,100 positions to be terminated, and $43M in reduced expenses (Betting...).
So now that a new plan is in place TCB has taken the appropriate steps to keep them in working order. The 1,005 recommendations have been assigned to teams within the line of business. Formal project plans for each team are developed and gathered weekly and are loaded into a database for tracking by other interdependencies (Betting...) This database is also available the employees to access if they want to check on an idea or if they want to suggest an idea. This database is also a great way for managers and employees to keep intouch on all aspects of the business, both big and small.
Although this process didn't run as smooth the Hydrel experience it still proves that reengineering or BPR can work for a company. Also I think the
TCB experience proved that, there are different ways to go about reengineering a company but the bottom line is, with total commitment it can work for all
companies.

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