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Reengineering (or re-engineering) is the radical redesign of an organization's processes, especially its business processes. Rather than organizing a firm into functional specialties (like production, accounting, marketing, etc.) and looking at the tasks that each function performs, we should, according to the reengineering theory, be looking at complete processes from materials acquisition, to production, to marketing and distribution. The firm should be re-engineered into a series of processes. The reengineering of software was described by Chikofsky and Cross in their 1990 paper, Reverse Engineering and Design Recovery: A Taxonomy, as the examination and alteration of a system to reconstitute it in a new form. Less formally, reengineering is the modification of a software system that takes place after... Image File history File links Merge-arrow. ... Business process reengineering (BPR) is a management approach aiming at improvements by means of elevating efficiency and effectiveness of the processes that exist within and across organizations. ... Software redesign means designing and implementing a new overall structure of a software system without changing its external behavior and with the goal to increase its flexibility. ... An organisation (or organization — see spelling differences) is a social arrangement which pursues collective goals, which controls its own performance, and which has a boundary separating it from its environment. ... Illustration of a physical process: a geyser in action. Process (lat. ... A Business Process is a collection of interrelated tasks, which solve a particular issue. ...

The main proponents of re-engineering were Michael Hammer and James A. 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 are responsible for all the tasks in the process. In The Agenda they extend the argument to include suppliers, distributors, and other business partners. One of the founders of the management theory behind BPR, orBusiness process reengineering, and proponent of a process oriented view of business management. ... James A. Champy is one of the founders of the management theory behind BPR, or Business process reengineering, and proponent of a process oriented view of business management. ...

Re-engineering is the basis for many recent developments in management. The cross-functional team, for example, has become popular because of the desire to re-engineer separate functional tasks into complete cross-functional processes. Also, many recent management information systems developments aim to integrate a wide number of business functions. Enterprise resource planning, supply chain management, knowledge management systems, groupware and collaborative systems, Human Resource Management Systems and customer relationship management systems all owe a debt to re-engineering theory. In business, a cross-functional team consists of a group of people working toward a common goal and made of people with different functional expertise. ... Management Information Systems (MIS), are information systems, typically computer based, that are used within an organization. ... Enterprise Resource Planning systems (ERPs) integrate (or attempt to integrate) all data and processes of an organization into a unified system. ... Supply chain management (SCM) is the process of planning, implementing, and controlling the operations of the supply chain as efficiently as possible. ... Knowledge Management (KM) comprises a range of practices used by organisations to identify, create, represent, and distribute knowledge for reuse, awareness and learning. ... Collaborative software, also known as groupware, is application software that integrates work on a single project by several concurrent users at separated workstations (see also Computer supported cooperative work). ... Human Resource Management Systems (HRMS, EHRMS), Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS), HR Technology or also called HR modules, shape an intersection in between human resource management (HRM) and information technology. ... Customer relationship management (CRM) is a broad term that covers concepts used by companies to manage their relationships with customers, including the capture, storage and analysis of customer, vendor, partner, and internal process information. ...

Criticisms of re-engineering

Reengineering has earned a bad reputation because such projects have often resulted in massive layoffs. This reputation is not altogether unwarranted, since companies have often downsized under the banner of reengineering. Further, reengineering has not always lived up to its expectations. The main reasons seem to be that:-

• Reengineering assumes that the factor that limits an organization's performance is the ineffectiveness of its processes (which may or may not be true) and offers no means of validating that assumption.
• Reengineering assumes the need to start the process of performance improvement with a "clean slate," i.e. totally disregard the status quo.
• According to Eliyahu M. Goldratt (and his Theory of Constraints) reengineering does not provide an effective way to focus improvement efforts on the organization's constraint.

There was considerable hype surrounding the book's introduction (partially due to the fact that the authors of Reengineering the Corporation reportedly ^{[citation needed]} bought numbers of copies to promote it to the top of bestseller lists). This article is about the English rock band. ... Eliyahu M. Goldratt (1948 - ) is an Israel-born physicist turned business consultant, the originator of the theory of constraints (abbreviation: TOC). ... Theory of Constraints (TOC) is an overall management philosophy that aims to continually achieve more of the goal of a system. ... A constraint is a limitation of possibilities. ...

Abrahamson (1996) showed that fashionable management terms tend to follow a lifecycle, which for Reengineering peaked between 1993 and 1996 (Ponzi and Koenig 2002). They argue that Reengineering was in fact nothing new (as e.g. when Henry Ford implemented the assembly line in 1908, he was in fact reengineering, radically changing the way of thinking in an organization). Dubois (2002) highlights the value of signaling terms as Reengineering, giving it a name, and stimulating it. At the same there can be a danger in usage of such fashionable concepts as mere ammunition to implement particular reforms.

See also

• Reengineering (software)
• Process management
• Business process reengineering
• business philosophy
• Management
• Manufacturing
• Process architecture

The reengineering of software was described by Chikofsky and Cross in their 1990 paper, Reverse Engineering and Design Recovery: A Taxonomy, as the examination and alteration of a system to reconstitute it in a new form. Less formally, reengineering is the modification of a software system that takes place after... Process management is the ensemble of activities of planning and monitoring the performance of a process, especially in the sense of business process, often confused with reengineering. ... Business process reengineering (BPR) is a management approach aiming at improvements by means of elevating efficiency and effectiveness of the processes that exist within and across organizations. ... A business philosophy or popular management theory is any of a range of accounting, marketing, public relations, operations, training, labor relations, executive time management, investment, and corporate governance approaches claimed (by their proponents, and sometimes only by their proponents and selected clients) to improve business performance in some measurable or... For other uses, see Management (disambiguation). ... Manufacturing (from Latin manu factura, making by hand) is the use of tools and labor to make things for use or sale. ... Process architecture is the structural design of general process systems and applies to fields such as computers (software, hardware, networks, etc. ...

References

• Business Process Redesign: An Overview , IEEE Engineering Management Review.
• Abrahamson, E. (1996). Management fashion, Academy of Management Review, 21, 254-285.
• Champy, J. (1995). Reengineering Management, Harper Business Books, New York.
• Dubois, H. F. W. (2002). Harmonization of the European vaccination policy and the role TQM and reengineering could play, Quality Management in Health Care, 10(2): pp. 47-57. "PDF"
• Hammer, M., (1990). "Reengineering Work: Don't Automate, Obliterate", Harvard Business Review, July/August, pp. 104-112.
• Hammer, M. and Champy, J. A.: (1993) Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution, Harper Business Books, New York, 1993. ISBN 0-06-662112-7.
• Hammer, M. and Stanton, S. (1995). "The Reengineering Revolution", Harper Collins, London, 1995.
• Hansen, Gregory (1993) "Automating Business Process Reengineering", Prentice Hall.
• Ponzi, L. and Koenig, M. (2002). "Knowledge management: another management fad?", Information Research, 8(1).
• "Reengineering Reviewed", (1994). The Economist, 2 July 1994, pp 66.
• Rummler, Geary A. and Brache, Alan P. Improving Performance: How to Manage the White Space in the Organization Chart, ISBN 0-7879-0090-7.