Business Process Reengineering as a Tool in Total Quality Management makes Engineering Business Sense: A new Perspective and Model | |
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( Volume 1 Issue 6,December 2015 ) OPEN ACCESS | |
Author(s): | |
Philip F. Musa | |
Abstract: | |
Business process reengineering (BPR) first made its way into American management lexicon in earnest with the publication of Hammer and Champy’s Reengineering The Corporation: A Manifesto For Business Revolution, in 1993. However, there were other writers’ works that preceded this publication; notable among these are the publications by James Harrington. Although lack of standardization is not limited to reengineering, this management concept seems to take this problem to new heights as evidenced by prevalent inconsistencies even in the writings of the same authors. Regardless of how the various theorists and practitioners define reengineering, it seeks to take advantage of advances in technology to address the goal of cost cutting in organizations. Too often business managers’ implementations of BPR have seemed to legitimize labor reductions. Somehow, quality improvement focus was lost in the shuffle. The premise here is that BPR’s historical conceptualization and implementation has many pitfalls. These pitfalls are elaborated upon in this article, and an alternative view is presented as to how BPR should be conceptualized and implemented. This new approach integrates BPR into Total Quality Management (TQM); it also preserves workers’ moral. Merging BPR into TQM shines a much needed positive light on BPR and strengthens the value continuous improvement doctrine in TQM. The “drastic” and “revolutionary” principles advocated by Hammer and Champy have caused unnecessary dislocations in businesses that implemented it as a separate business practice from TQM. The fundamental issue is the crystallization of what BPR really is. How should we view it? Is it a management strategy or is it a tool by which higher level management strategies such as TQM could be executed? We present an alternative conceptualization of business process reengineering. Therefore, this paper enhances not only engineering knowledge, but the business of engineering knowledge. |
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