Business Process Reengineering
(BPR)

Fundamentally reconsidering and radically redesigning of organizational processes. Explanation of Business Process Reengineering of Hammer and Champy.

The Business Process Reengineering method (BPR) is described by Hammer and Champy as 'the fundamental reconsideration and the radical redesign of organizational processes, in order to achieve drastic improvement of current performance in cost, services and speed'.

Rather than organizing a firm into functional specialties (like production, accounting, marketing, etc.) and to look at the tasks that each function performs, Hammer and Champy recommend that we should look at complete processes. From materials acquisition, towards production, towards marketing and distribution. One should rebuild the firm into a series of processes.

Value creation for the customer is the leading factor for BPR and information technology often plays an important enabling role. Compare: Relationship Marketing

Michael Hammer and James Champy

The main proponents of re-engineering were Michael Hammer and James Champy. In a series of books including Reengineering the Corporation, Reengineering Management, and The Agenda, they argue that far too much time is wasted, passing on tasks from one department to another. They claim that it is far more efficient to appoint a team who perform all the tasks in the process.

A five step approach to Business Process Reengineering

Davenport (1992) prescribes a five-step approach to the Business Process Reengineering model:

Develop the business vision and process objectives: The BPR method is driven by a business vision which implies specific business objectives such as cost reduction, time reduction, output quality improvement.
Identify the business processes to be redesigned: most firms use the 'high-impact' approach which focuses on the most important processes or those that conflict most with the business vision. A lesser number of firms use the 'exhaustive approach' that attempts to identify all the processes within an organization and then prioritize them in order of redesign urgency.
Understand and measure the existing processes: to avoid the repeating of old mistakes and to provide a baseline for future improvements. Compare: Scientific Management
Identify IT levers: awareness of IT capabilities can and should influence BPR.
Design and build a prototype of the new process: the actual design should not be viewed as the end of the BPR process. Rather, it should be viewed as a prototype, with successive iterations. The metaphor of prototype aligns the Business Process Reengineering approach with quick delivery of results, and the involvement and satisfaction of customers.

As an additional 6th step of the BPR method, sometimes you find: to adapt the organizational structure, and the governance model, towards the newly designed primary process.

Generic Circumstances that influence whether BPR is advisable

Although it is difficult to give generic advice about this, some factors that can be considered are:

Does the competition clearly outperform the company? Compare: Turnaround Management
Are there many conflicts in the organization?
Is there an extremely high frequency of meetings?
Excessive use of non-structured communication? (memos, emails, etc)
Is it possible to consider a more continuous approach of gradual, incremental improvements? (see: Kaizen).

Critics of the BPR approach

Reengineering has earned a bad reputation because such projects have often resulted in massive layoffs. In spite of the hype that surrounded the introduction of Business Process Reengineering, partially due to the fact that the authors of Reengineering the Corporation reportedly bought huge numbers of copies to reach the top of the bestseller lists, the method has not entirely lived up to its expectations. The main reasons seem to be that:

BPR assumes that the factor that limits organization's performance is the ineffectiveness of its processes. This may or may not always be true. Also BPR offers no means to validate this assumption.
BPR assumes the need to start the process of performance improvement with a "clean slate", i.e. totally disregard the status quo.
BPR does not provide an effective way to focus the improvement efforts on the organization's constraints. (As done by Goldratt in the Theory of Constraints).
Sometimes, or maybe quite often, a gradual and incremental change (such as Kaizen) may be a better approach.
BPR is culturally biased towards the US way of thinking. (see: Cultural Dimensions)

BPR compared to Kaizen

When Kaizen is compared with the BPR method is it clear the Kaizen philosophy is more people-oriented, more easy to implement, but requires long-term discipline and provides only a small pace of change. The Business Process Reengineering approach on the other hand is harder, technology-oriented, it enables radical change but it requires considerable change management skills.

Book: Hammer and Champy - Reengineering the Corporation -

Book: Davenport - Process Innovation -

Business Process Reengineering Forum (34)

BPR - Time Reduction versus Cost
"Doing away the manual processes and bringing in technology and tools to make a process time efficient is one way of doing BPR.
However, technology and tools also come at a certain cost. That's why decision makers are often hesitant to invest in automation without evaluating the business gains. Business dynamics are causing automation to change as well, this is inevitable. Time windows are shrinking, customers are very demanding. They are wiser compared to yesterday. They want value additions and higher value for their money.
To retain, sustain and enhance organization's business/revenues customer base you must have processes with:
- Reduced errors; meaning greater reliability
- Enhanced controls; meaning precision
- More delivery in less time; meaning the processes go faster
- Less physical and mental fatigue; meaning safer working environment

A word of caution. Just because something can be automated that doesn't mean they should be. Automating is not always a good thing to do. Some people may fall into the trap of thinking that if something can be automated, it should be. But that is like someone purchasing a robotic lawn mower, while he enjoys mowing the lawn...
And remember boons and banes (pros and cons) don't travel alone. They always come in pairs."

Deterministic Machines Concept in BPR
"Hi all, could anyone give me a clarification regarding deterministic machines concept in BPR please? How can BPR be viewed in the view of deterministic machine view?"

Developing a Standard Framework for BPR
"After reviewing literature, I think that there exists no standard process of BPR. Every company redesigns its processes in its own way.
I believe different cultures, strategies and organizational structures are the main reasons of adapting so many different methods to BPR.
However, I do believe there is a need for a standard framework which could be applied to any BPR case. We could measure the performance and through continuous improvement enhance the project.
I'm currently doing an MBA research on how to succeed a BPR. To collect your opinions on my ideas, I create a survey. Could you please help me to fill in it in order to understand whether my ideas are right and feasible?
Please click on this link to take the survey. Thank you in advance for your help."

Is BPR Helping ERP or is ERP Helping BPR?
"I am a PhD student and my area is BPR. I just want to know your expert opinion (just general) regarding the relationship of BPR and ERP.
It is a fact that BPR uses technology for efficiency however, I have come across that ERP is doing the same.
So my question is how are these two tools interrelated, and which one is helping the other?
Is BPR used to implement ERP or is ERP helping BPR?"

Cases and Causes of BPR Failure / BPR Disasters
"Hello,
I'm doing research on BPR failure cases. Unfortunately, I can't find any cases to illustrate my research. Could you please tell me where I can find this kind of cases?
Thank you in advance."

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