Business Process Reengineering
Business Process Reengineering throws out the existing process and redesigns it from a blank page around the outcome the customer actually needs, rather than patching the process that's already there.
Five steps run in sequence: map today's process, define the customer outcome, redesign from zero, pilot on one line, then roll out and retire the old process.
Reach for this when…
- A process has been patched so many times nobody can explain why each step exists.
- Automating the current process would just make a bad process faster.
- Costs are creeping up and small fixes to the workflow aren't moving the number.
How to run it
- Map the process as it actually runs today, not as the manual says.
- Ask what outcome the customer needs, and drop every step that doesn't serve it.
- Redesign the process from zero, ignoring the existing org chart.
- Pilot the new process on one unit or one product line.
- Roll out, and retire the old process completely so nobody drifts back.
A worked example
Situation. At Farah Al Mansoori's garment maker Marina Garments, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, an order from a small retailer passed through eight separate approval desks before it ever reached the cutting floor, each desk adding roughly a day.
Applied. Farah mapped the real path an order took, asked what the retailer actually needed - a confirmed order and a ship date - and redesigned around that, giving one planner ownership of the order end to end with two checks instead of eight.
Result. Lead time fell from around three weeks to under two. The seven redundant desks were closed, not just bypassed, so the old habit had nowhere to creep back to.
The catch
BPR's radicalism is also its risk: redesigning from a blank page ignores the tacit knowledge built into the old process, and organisations that reengineer without addressing the people side get a leaner process nobody trusts. It also travels badly into settings where the existing hierarchy is the point, not a byproduct.
If the new process chart looks like the old one with fewer boxes, you patched. You didn't reengineer.
Origin: Michael Hammer & James Champy