Information System Mangement Notes For BPR.ppt

Notes

1. Business Process Re-engineering

2. Definition
•BPR is the fundamental rethinking and radical
redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic
improvements in critical contemporary measures of
performance such as cost, quality, service and
speed.
Fundamental & radical indicates that BPR is
akin/similar to zero base budgeting: it starts by
asking basic questions such as ‘why do we do what
we do’, without making any assumptions or looking
back to what has always been done in the past.

3. ‘Dramatic’: means that BPR should
achieve ‘quantum leaps in performance’,
not just marginal, incremental
improvements.
‘Process’ is a collection of activities that
takes one or more kinds of input and
creates an output.

4. Characteristics
Often several jobs are combined into on.
Workers often make decisions.
The steps in the process are performed in a
logical order.
Work is performed where it makes sense.
Checks and controls may be reduced, and quality
‘built-in.’
One manager provides a single point of contact.
The advantages of centralised and decentralised
operations are combined.

5. BPR Methodology (steps)
Step 1. Develop the business vision and process
objectives. BPR is driven by a business vision
which implies specific business objectives such as
cost reduction, time reduction and quality
improvement.
 Step 2.Identify the processes to be redesigned. Most
firms use the high-impact approach which focuses
on the most important processes or those that
conflict most with the business vision.Lesser
number of firms use the exhaustive approach that
attempts to identify all the process.

6. •Step 3. Understand and measure the existing
processes. So old mistakes are not repeated and
to provide a baseline for future improvements.
 .
•Step 4. Identify IT levers. Awareness of IT
capabilities can and should influence process
design. The role of IT is expanded on in the next
section.
•Step 5. Design and build a prototype of the new
process. The actual design should not be viewed
as the end of the BPR process- it should be
viewed as a prototype, with successive
alternations. The use of a prototype enables the
involvement of customers.

7. IT and BPR
•Simply throwing IT at a problem does not cause
it to be re-engineered. Merely computerising
existing ways of doing things is not necessarily
the best solution. For technology to deliver value,
it must help enact the processes that satisfy
business requirements.
•However IT is an enabler. BPR uses uses IT to
allow a business to do things that it is not doing
already. Below are examples of how IT has been
used to change they way work is conducted.

8. Roles Of IT In BPR
1.
      IT has resulted in shared databases,
client/server architecture, e-mail, making
information appear simultaneously wherever
needed.
2.
      Telecommunication and networks,
client/server systems makes the business to be
either centralized/decentralized.
3.
      DSS, expert systems etc ensures that decision
making is part of everyone job.

9. 4.Computer aided design(cad), CASE tools,
online sys. Ensures that customized products
can be made fast and inexpensive.
5. Group support system, telecommunication ,e-
mail etc imply that people can work together
while at different locations.
6.
      IT supports changes in business process
people can now combine functions.
Telecommunications network allow
businesses to combine centralised and
decentralised systems.

10. 7.IT enhances total quality management (TQM)
programs.-The integrated system guarantees
consistent and timely information resulting in
improved quality and efficiency.
8.Wireless data comm’n and portable computers
enable field staff to send and receive information
wherever they are.
9.Interactive websites mean that personal contact
with buyers can be replaced by effective contact.

11. Problems of BPR
•Misunderstanding by managers:
BPR has become allied/associated in manager’s
minds with narrow targets such as reductions
in staff numbers and cost cutting measures.
•Managers are not used to thinking in
system terms : management itself should
be re-engineered.Manager should look at
issues including those affecting their jobs
in re-engineering.

12. Reference qtn
•Dec. 200 qtn 7