What are the major characteristics of Re-engineered Processes?

The major characteristics of Re-engineered Processes are as follows:

1.  Improved processes to better serve customers.

2.  Strong processes to enter new markets.

3.  Expanded processes to provide additional services to existing customers.

4.  Innovated processes that perform well to create and deliver different goods and services.

5.Diversified new processes to deliver new goods or services.

sorry i'm not expert on this field

This has been well answered

i fully agree with the answers been added by experts..........thanks.

I agree with the contribution by Mr. Fazlur Rahman!

Thanks for invitation

I amagree with my colleague’s answer Mr Rahman

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The major characteristics are as follow:

·         Several Jobs are combined into one

·         Employees make decisions

·         Steps in business process as Natural order

·         Work is Performed where it makes the most sense

·         Reconciliation is minimized

·         A single point of contact for required information

I am really sorry but I have no experience in the filed, I think Mr.Fazlur provided a good answer.

Despite the vagueness of the term Business Process Re-engineering, some characteristics are shared by writers on BPR:

1. Process orientation: From structure to process

Business process orientation is trying to overcome some of the problems raised by the Tayloristic view of structural specialization. In an international context, process orientation changes the perspective from structural relationships between headquarters and subsidiaries to the interaction processes between them.

2. Definition of business processes

A process is a specific arrangement of activities across time and place, with a beginning and an end, with inputs and outputs. Business processes aim at producing an output that supports a firm's targets and cuts across functions, departments, and in some cases across the boundaries of an organization. Business activities include informational, operational and managerial activities. Re-engineering covers all three activities, not only operational activities.

3. The contents and boundaries of business processes

The contents and boundaries of business processes vary from firm to firm. The experience of designers shows that a firm should differentiate its ongoing activities by a range of ten to twenty business processes. Each company has its own set of business processes. For instance, IBM uses eighteen business processes. Some examples of these processes are: production, customer fulfillment, customer feedback and development of hardware.

4. Business process owners and responsibility

Top management should take over the ownership and hence the responsibility for the business processes to ensure their optimal management as well as their continuous improvement. Line responsibility and process ownership form a matrix.

5. International business processes

Business processes are not international per se. The internationality of the firm determines how many business processes have an international scope. Some business processes are more likely to be international than others, for instance global sourcing, global key account management, R&D, new product launch, or manufacturing.

6. Customer orientation

BPR is radically customer-oriented. Process outputs should not only support the firm's objectives, but must also satisfy customers' requirements. Customers should be integrated into the redesign.

7. Re-engineering as a radical change of business processe

Re-engineering of business processes is a radical break of process structures which bears great risks. Hammer confessed that seventy per cent of all BPR projects in which he was involved failed. However, the opportunities are also great. Where as programs of TQM aim at reaching improvements of 30 to 40 percent, Hammer and Champy report cases of redesign where process times have been shortened by a factor of 100.

8. Holistic view of processes instead of piecemeal engineering

BPR takes a holistic view of the network of parallel and serial processes. A holistic view can overcome the piecemeal engineering of isolated parts of a business process which often results in sub optimal solutions, particularly when the preceding or following process steps fall under the responsibility of a foreign subsidiary. However, designers lose this holistic view if they distinguish between too many processes or too many process levels. IBM, which has the longest experience with process re-organization, reduced their 140 subprocesses to the above mentioned 18 business processes.

9. Top -down approach of Business Process Re-engineering

A holistic view harmonizes with a top down approach. Because of the broad, cross- functional scope of BPR and the risks of radical change, top management should initiate, control, and monitor the re-engineering. BPR follows a top-down approach in contrast to quality improvement programs which follow a bottom-up approach.

10. Benchmarking of Business Process Re-engineering

Business processes are benchmarked. Continuous improvement and radical innovation are designed to reduce cost and time, to increase customer satisfaction and organizational flexibility. However, only a deep understanding of cause-effect relationships will identify the true cost drivers and time wasters.

Compared to the ten characteristics of BPR, the interview partners had a different perception and understanding of business processes. Although top management in the German electronics and pharmaceutical industries had a basic understanding of processes and their inherent possibilities of improvement, the lower echelons of these firms have not been influenced by the process philosophy, with the exception of data processing departments. Most firms have improved efficiency of separate processes by applying TQM and JIT concepts. These improvements lacked the radical, systematic, and holistic approach of BPR. Only a very few, exceptional companies in the sample, like the often quoted IBM and DEC, reported a fully-developed process organization.

Almost all major consulting firms, as well as companies with BPR experience such as IBM, HP and DEC participate in the BPR market with Andersen Consulting, which is the market leader. The BPR philosophy is heavily promoted by writers who work as partners of or in connection with consulting firms and who have a strong commercial interest in the diffusion of BPR. A more critical observer might also take into account the complaints of numerous victims who have ventured into BPR unsuccessfully. He might critically ask: What is really new about BPR? A succinct answer might be that BPR changes the focus from a structural to a process view of an organization.

Sorry I did not understand the question and it is not a specialist