Business Process Reengineering

ALSO CALLED: Re-Engineering, Reengineering, Process Reengineering, Process Quality Management, BPR, Process Innovation, Process Improvement, Business Process Engineering
DEFINITION: Business process reengineering (BPR) is the analysis and redesign of workflow within and between enterprises. BPR reached its heyday in the early 1990's when Michael Hammer and James Champy published their best-selling book, "Reengineering the Corporation". The authors promoted the idea that sometimes radical redesign and reorganization of an enterprise (wiping the slate clean) was necessary to lower  … 
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BUSINESS PROCESS REENGINEERING DEFINITION (continued): …  costs and increase quality of service and that information technology was the key enabler for that radical change. Hammer and Champy felt that the design of workflow in most large corporations was based on assumptions about technology, people, and organizational goals that were no longer valid. They suggested seven principles of reengineering to streamline the work process and thereby achieve significant levels of improvement in quality, time management, and cost:1. Organize around outcomes, not tasks.2. Identify all the processes in an organization and prioritize them in order of redesign … 
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