Business process reengineering is part of systems modeling and requirements.  Click image to enlarge.

Over the course of time, it is common for an organization's business processes, and the information technology used to support them, to evolve and diverge. Business process reengineering (BPR) seeks to evaluate how well business processes and supporting infrastructures accommodate maturing and ever-changing business needs. BPR is ultimately a process of discovery. Frequently, an organization's original business process designers are no longer available, and insight they possessed has long since been widely dispersed.

Definition of Reengineering

Michael Hammer and James Champy, authors of Reengineering the Corporation, describe reengineering as ". . . putting aside much of the received wisdom of two hundred years of industrial management. It means forgetting how work was done in the age of the mass market and deciding how it can best be done . . . what matters in reengineering is how we want to organize work today, given the demands of today's markets and the power of today's technologies."

Business Process Reengineering vs. Reverse Engineering: What Is the Difference?

	Reverse engineering looks to the past and sees things as they have been; reengineering looks to the future and sees things as they should be.

Sometimes the concepts of business process reengineering and reverse engineering are confused. It is true that both reverse engineering and reengineering consider what currently exists. But while reverse engineering seeks only to determine what is currently being done and how it is currently being done, reengineering seeks also to understand why it is being done in the first place.

Reverse engineering looks to the past and sees things as they have been; reengineering looks to the future and sees things as they should be. Reverse engineering seeks to reproduce; reengineering seeks to rethink.

	BPR addresses business process issues at their fundamental core. It rejects as sufficient justification the statement, "Because that's the way we've always done it."

Reverse engineering relies on:

• Observation

• Deductive reasoning

• Specification

Reengineering relies on:

• Vision

• Inductive reasoning

• Generalization

BPR addresses business process issues at their fundamental core. It respects statutory and regulatory requirements but does not accept the status quo. In particular, it rejects as sufficient justification the statement, "Because that's the way we've always done it."

Business Process Reengineering: The Intent

The intent, therefore, of reengineering is to seek out not only how a process can be accomplished faster, better, or cheaper, but also why it is accomplished at all. Once the "why" is understood, BPR sets its sites on exploiting business process and information technology advances that can be brought to bear on the validated need.

Business Process Reengineering: The Process

BPR is a process of discovery. Reengineers aggregate and reassemble the steps in a business process like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that have been shuffled and distributed throughout an organization.

Domain Knowledge: What Do You Know About . . .?

	BPR investigation uncovers necessary fine tuning specific to a given domain.

Though domain knowledge can be helpful, it is not absolutely necessary. In fact, the lack of specific domain knowledge is usually an asset to reengineering efforts. Sound business process characteristics are largely universal, regardless of the specific technical or business environment. Additionally, the BPR investigation process itself uncovers necessary fine tuning specific to a given domain.

BPR Investigation: How Do You Uncover What Needs To Be Done?

The business process reengineering process of investigation is in many ways similar to the more familiar criminal investigation process. Crime investigators supplement a set of investigative tools with a keen understanding of human behavior and habits that

they developed with years of experience. Reconstructing pertinent criminal events involves finding and assembling pieces of the mystery puzzle. Frequently, there is no one person who possesses all of the information necessary to solve the mystery.

	The first step in BPR is to validate the reason a process exists.

Business process reengineers likewise

employ a set of investigative tools supplemented by a keen understanding of organizational behavior and habits. These behaviors and habits, also known as processes (both formal and informal) are what make an organization tick. Reconstructing pertinent process steps involves finding and assembling pieces of the process puzzle. Reengineers gather as many pieces of the process puzzle as possible by speaking to people familiar with various aspects of the process and its participants. Reengineers must separate key pieces of process information from diversions (i.e., separate the "can'ts" from the "won'ts"). One key piece of information is the root causes of process inefficiencies and ineffectiveness: find them, and the rest of the pieces usually fall into place.

Business Process Reengineering: The Products

Business processes are created to satisfy a perceived need. As time and technology advance, the process and the perceived need often begin to evolve and diverge. Divergence often occurs so slowly that it is practically imperceptible, at least until it is illuminated by a chronic inability to efficiently and effectively produce the desired product or service. When this breakdown occurs, it is necessary to reconsider not only the continued applicability of the existing process, but also the continued existence of the perceived need. It is for this reason that the most effective reengineering tool is the question "Why?" This question helps draw out of the experts the information necessary to construct the two reengineering artifacts: the current business process model and the future business process model.

The Current Business Process Model

A clear understanding of what currently exists is a necessary reengineering foundation.

As previously mentioned, the first step in BPR is to validate the reason a process exists and to assess the sufficiency of the current business process to satisfy a continuing need.

The current business process model provides the repository of findings, assembled from stakeholder input and supplemented with reengineering expertise, concerning this all-important step. A clear understanding of what currently exists is a necessary reengineering foundation; for upon this foundation, a description of what ought to be can be built.

The Future Business Process Model

	Plans can be created to move the organization toward its newly found, or newly validated, objectives.

Ideally, the future business process environment is aware of, but not constrained by, the current business process environment. But in reality, it usually is. The future business process model is, therefore, also constructed with input from, and validated by, business process stakeholders. More than just a pipe dream, it serves as a vision of the desired future business environment. With this vision, plans can be created to move the organization toward its newly found, or newly validated, objectives.

To learn how business process reengineering can be employed within your organization, please contact us.

We can offer you insights about how to specify the most effective approach to solving your software engineering problems. For more information about business process reengineering capabilities at Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) or how you can contract with SwRI, please contact Steven H. Rodgers at srodgers@swri.org or (210) 522-3772.