Business Process Re-engineering (bpr)

BUSINESS PROCESS RE-ENGINEERING (BPR) BY WALIMBE ABHAY H.

•INTRODUCTION TO BPR •Definition:

According to hammer & Champ, BPR is defined as “The fundamental rethinking & radical redesign of business process to achieve dramatic improvement in critical contemporary measures of performance such as cost, quality, service & speed. ” •

FEATURES OF BPR           

Workers make decisions. Several jobs are combined into one. Steps in the process are performed in natural order. Process has multiple versions. Work is performed where it makes the most sense. Checks & controls are reduced. Reconciliation is minimized. A case manager provides a single point of contact. Work unit changes: functional to process. Structure changes: hierarchical to flat. Managers change: Supervisor to coaches.

ORGANIZATION STRUCTURE Classical IE Based

BPR Based

Hierarchical management

Flatterened & shortened chain of command control

Vertical division of labour, centralization of decisions

Decentralization of responsibilities & of decision making

Separation of categories by status

Blurring of status differences & trend towards more status equity

Technical division of labour & atomistic & service strict task assignment

Enlargement of task toward more professional division of work

Specialization & compartmentalization of knowledge

Multidisciplinary team working

Classical IE Based

BPR Based

Loose ties with supplier

Connectivity with suppliers & subcontractors

Loose ties with consumer

Great sensitivity to market demand, to buyers & consumers & all stock holders Structural, technological &

Standardized products & production processes.

organizational flexibility.

Overall routines & rigidities

Continuous search for innovation & value additions.

Production management is central

Human resource department becomes central

TQM , JIT & BPR TQM seeks to create an atmosphere where ‘Doing right thing on right time in right quality’ becomes the goal. Quality is designed & built in each activity rather than being inspected after the event. JIT is a mfg. philosophy that calls for total reorganization of operations in order to minimize non value adding & wasted activities & balance operations to demand. BPR is a mean by which an organization can bring radical change in level of cost, cycle time, service & quality by application of various tools & techniques that focus on business as a set of related customer oriented core business process rather than a set of organizational functions.

BPR differs from TQM & JIT in following ways: BPR provides a new definition of operational excellence which helps to destroy all the old tenets. This provides internal drivers & external focus so that customer & supplier receive more attention. BPR pushes TQM & JIT approaches both upstream & downstream to customer & supplier in order to either add value in supply chain more effectively or to penetrate into market more aggressively. BPR requires corporate leaders not only to discover new avenues but to eliminate nonvalue added activities by challenging very purpose, principles & the basic assumptions on which the systems are founded. Traditional TQM & JIT often fail to break functional barriers & engage the individuals in improving process.

BPR

examines & analyses work flow structure of a process & reconstructs them with capabilities of IT systems as necessary. Thus, it can be said that BPR, as a strategic cross functional initiative must be integrated with others if it is to succeed. So there is a strong linkage between TQM, JIT & BPR & all aiming towards enhancing competitiveness of organization. So, BPR is TPQM i.e. Total productivity & quality management which is in line with

CASE STUDY: COMPANY: MAHINDRA & MAHINDRA [Igatpuri and Kandivili (MH)]

Problems before BPR started: Manufacturing inefficiencies. Poor productivity. Long production cycle. Sub-optimal output.

RE-ENGINEERING PROCESS: Examine customer’s needs. Define strategic & tactical sets of goals. Strategic- subjective like effectiveness, efficiency etc. Tacticalobjective like reduce lead time, inventories, costs etc. Identify & define relevant applicable principles of specific technique being used. Establish new set of activities/ processes & define them in detail.

CHANGES REQUIRED ON BEHAVIORAL SIDE IN REENGINEERING: Team work & communication. Introduce new changes with patience & persuasion. To lower resistance to new philosophy & unfamiliar methods, 80 Hrs of training was prescribed for every employee. Courses in cultural orientation , personality profiles, team building & interpersonal skills.

REWARDS OF BPR: Factory lead time reduced. WIP inventory turnovers doubled. Delivered product defect rates reduced by half. senior staff began working on the shop floors. Around a 100 officers produced 35 engines a day as compared to the 1200 employees producing 70 engines in the pre-BPR days. M&M realized that it would have to focus on two issues when implementing the BPR program: reengineering the layout and method of working, and productivity.

CONCLUSION: BPR must be integrated with TQM & JIT as there is strong linkage between them & all aiming towards enhancing the competitiveness of an organization. In today’s competitive environment three forces viz.. Customer, competition & change play a significant role. The traditional organization can not meet the present challenges. So BPR plays an important role to deliver goods & services at competitive prize, quality & on time delivery. The benefits of re-engineering are very significant. The industrial engineers are the agents of the change & have several

REFERENCES: Indian Management Journal, July- Dec 97, vol36. Industrial Engineering Journal1996, vol XXV. Industrial Engineering Journal1997, vol XXVI. Industrial Engineering Journal2000, vol XXIX. Industrial Engineering Journal2003, vol XXXII. Industrial Engineering Journal2004, vol XXXIII.

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