Reengineering (or re-engineering) is the radical redesign of an organization's processes, especially its business processes. Design is used both as a Noun and a Verb. The term is often tied to the various Applied arts and Engineering (See design disciplines An organization (or organisation &mdash see spelling differences) is a social arrangement which pursues collective goals which controls its own performance and A business process or business method is a collection of interrelated Tasks, which accomplish a particular goal 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 main proponents of re-engineering were Michael Hammer and James A. Champy. Michael Martin Hammer ( April 13, 1948 &ndash September 3, 2008) was one of the founders of the Management theory of Business James A Champy is one of the founders of the Management theory behind Business process reengineering (BPR and proponent of a process oriented view of business management 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.

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. In business a cross-functional team is a group of people with different functional expertise working toward a common goal Also, many recent management information systems developments aim to integrate a wide number of business functions. Management Information System ( MIS) is a subset of the overall Internal controls of a business covering the application of people documents technologies and procedures 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. Enterprise resource planning ( ERP) is the planning of how business resources (materials employees customers etc 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 Collaborative software (also referred to as groupware or workgroup support systems) is software designed to help people involved in a common task achieve their Customer relationship management ( CRM) is a term applied to processes implemented by a company to handle its contact with its customers

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. Status quo is a Latin term meaning the present existing state of affairs or "the state in which"
• 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. Eliyahu M Goldratt (1948 -) is an Israeli physicist turned business consultant Theory of Constraints (TOC is an overall Management philosophy.

There was considerable hype surrounding the introduction of Reengineering the Corporation (partially due to the fact that the authors of the book reportedly bought numbers of copies to promote it to the top of bestseller lists).

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

References

• Business Process Redesign: An Overview , IEEE Engineering Management Review. The reengineering of Software was described by Chikofsky and Cross in their 1990 paper as "The examination and alteration of a system to reconstitute it in a new form" 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 Business process reengineering (BPR is a Management approach aiming at improvements by means of elevating efficiency and effectiveness of the processes A business philosophy or popular management theory is any of a range of approaches to Accounting, Marketing, Public relations, operations Management (covering theory practice and scope of management and Manager' (covering the people who manage might help clarify and systematise 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
• Abrahamson, E. (1996). Management fashion, Academy of Management Review, 21, 254-285.
• Champy, J. (1995). Reengineering Management, Harper Business Books, New York. HarperCollins is a Publishing company owned by News Corporation.
• 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). Michael Martin Hammer ( April 13, 1948 &ndash September 3, 2008) was one of the founders of the Management theory of Business "Reengineering Work: Don't Automate, Obliterate", Harvard Business Review, July/August, pp. Harvard Business Review is a general Management Magazine published since 1922 by Harvard Business School Publishing, owned by the Harvard 104-112.
• Hammer, M. and Champy, J. A.: (1993) Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution, Harper Business Books, New York, 1993. James A Champy is one of the founders of the Management theory behind Business process reengineering (BPR and proponent of a process oriented view of business management 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. Prentice Hall is a leading educational publisher It is an Imprint of Pearson Education Inc
• 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. The Economist is an English-language weekly news and International affairs publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd and edited in London Events 310 - Pope Miltiades is elected 626 - In fear of assassination Li Shimin ambushes and kills his rival Year 1994 ( MCMXCIV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display full 1994 Gregorian calendar)
• Rummler, Geary A. and Brache, Alan P. Improving Performance: How to Manage the White Space in the Organization Chart, ISBN 0-7879-0090-7.