Companies lawFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia(Redirected from Types of business units)Jump to: navigation, search The examples and perspective in this article may not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please improve this article and discuss the issue on the talk page. (August 2010)

Companies law

Company Business

Business entities

Sole proprietorship Partnership Corporation Cooperative

European Union / EEA

EEIG SCE SE SPE

UK / Ireland / Commonwealth

Community interest company Limited company by guarantee by shares Proprietary Public Unlimited company

United States

Benefit corporation C corporation LLC Series LLC LLLP S corporation Delaware corporation Delaware statutory trust Massachusetts business trust Nevada corporation

Additional entities

AB AG ANS A/S AS GmbH K.K. N.V. Oy S.A. more

Doctrines

Business judgment rule Corporate governance De facto corporation and corporation by estoppel Internal affairs doctrine Limited liability Piercing the corporate veil Rochdale Principles Ultra vires

Corporate laws

United States Canada United Kingdom Germany France South Africa Australia Vietnam

Related areas

Civil procedure Contract

v t e

Companies law (or the law of business associations) is the field of law concerning companies and other business organizations. This includes corporations, partnerships and other associations which usually carry on some form of economic or charitable activity. The most prominent kind of company, usually referred to as a "corporation", is a "juristic person", i.e. it has separate legal personality, and those who invest money into the business have limited liability for any losses the company makes, governed by corporate law. The largest companies are usually publicly listed on stock exchanges around the world. Even single individuals, also known as sole traders may incorporate themselves and limit their liability in order to carry on a business. All different forms of companies depend on the particular law of the particular country in which they reside.The law of business organizations originally derived from the common law of England, but has evolved significantly in the 20th century. In common law countries today, the most commonly addressed forms are: Corporation Limited company Unlimited company Limited liability partnership Limited partnership Not-for-profit corporation Company limited by guarantee Partnership Sole ProprietorshipThe proprietary limited company is a statutory business form in several countries, including Australia.Many countries have forms of business entity unique to that country, although there are equivalents elsewhere. Examples are the limited liability company (LLC) and the limited liability limited partnership (LLLP) in the United States.Other types of business organizations, such as cooperatives, credit unions and publicly owned enterprises, can be established with purposes that parallel, supersede, or even replace the profit maximization mandate of business corporations.For a country-by-country listing of officially recognized forms of business organization, see Types of business entity.There are various types of company that can be formed in different jurisdictions, but the most common forms of company are: a company limited by guarantee. Commonly used where companies are formed for non-commercial purposes, such as clubs or charities. The members guarantee the payment of certain (usually nominal) amounts if the company goes into insolvent liquidation, but otherwise they have no economic rights in relation to the company . a company limited by guarantee with a share capital. A hybrid entity, usually used where the company is formed for non-commercial purposes, but the activities of the company are partly funded by investors who expect a return. a company limited by shares. The most common form of company used for business ventures. an unlimited company either with or without a share capital. This is a hybrid company, a company similar to its limited company (Ltd.) counterpart but where the members or shareholders do not benefit from limited liability should the company ever go into formal liquidation.There are, however, many specific categories of corporations and other business organizations which may be formed in various countries and jurisdictions throughout the world.Contents 1 US companies law 2 Companies law theory 3 Companies law study 4 See also 5 Notes 6 References 7 External linksUS companies lawIn the United States, corporations are generally incorporated, or organized, under the laws of a particular state. The corporate law of a corporation's state of incorporation generally governs that corporation's internal governance (even if the corporation's operations take place outside of that state). The corporate laws of the various states differ - in some cases significantly - from state to state. Because of these differences, corporate lawyers are often consulted in an effort to determine the most appropriate or advantageous state in which to incorporate, and a majority of public companies in the U.S. are Delaware corporations.[1] The federal laws of the United States and local law may also be applicable sources of corporate law.Companies law theoryA corporation is described to be a person in a political capacity created by the law, to endure in perpetual succession.[2] Americans in the 1790s knew of a variety of corporations established for various purposes, including those of commerce, education, and religion. As the law of corporations was articulated by the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Marshall, over the first several decades of the new American state, emphasis fell, in a way which seems natural to us today, upon commercial corporations. Nonetheless, Wilson believed that, in all cases, corporations should be erected with caution, and inspected with care. The actions of corporations were clearly circumscribed: To every corporation a name must be assigned; and by that name alone it can perform legal acts. For non-binding external actions or transactions, corporations enjoyed the same latitude as private individuals; but it was with an eye to internal affairs that many saw principal advantage in incorporation. The power of making by-laws was tacitly annexed to corporations by the very act of their establishment.[2] While they must not directly contradict the overarching laws of the land, the central or local government cannot be expected to regulate toward the peculiar circumstances of a given body, and so they are invested with authority to make regulations for the management of their own interests and affairs.[2]The question then arises: if corporations are to be inspected with care, what - if not the commercial or social conduct, or the by-laws - is to be inspected and by whom? Do corporations have duties? Yes: The general duties of every corporation may be collected from the nature and design of its institution: it should act agreeably to its nature, and fulfill the purposes for which it was formed.[2] Who sees that corporations are living up to those duties? The law has provided proper persons with proper powers to visit those institutions, and to correct every irregularity, which may arise within them.[2] The Common Law provided for inspection by the court of kings bench. In 1790, at least, the powers of the court of king's bench [were] vested in the supreme court of Pennsylvania.[2] As for the dissolution of corporations, there seems not to have been much question that a corporation might surrender its legal existence into the hands of that power, from which it was received. From such a surrender, the dissolution of the body corporate ensues.[2] Nor does there seem to have been much question that by a judgment of forfeiture against a corporation itself, it may be dissolved.[2] However, Supreme Court Justice Wilson, lecturing in his unofficial capacity, at least, suggests his displeasure with the doctrine that corporate dissolution cannot be predicated by a judgment of ouster against individuals. God forbid such is the sentiment of Mr. Justice Wilmot that the rights of the body should be lost or destroyed by the offenses of the members.[2]As theorists such as Ronald Coase have pointed out, all business organizations represent an attempt to avoid certain costs associated with doing business. Each is meant to facilitate the contribution of specific resources - investment capital, knowledge, relationships, and so forth - towards a venture which will prove profitable to all contributors. Except for the partnership, all business forms are designed to provide limited liability to both members of the organization and external investors. Business organizations originated with agency law, which permits an agent to act on behalf of a principal, in exchange for the principal assuming equal liability for the wrongful acts committed by the agent. For this reason, all partners in a typical general partnership may be held liable for the wrongs committed by one partner. Those forms that provide limited liability are able to do so because the state provides a mechanism by which businesses that follow certain guidelines will be able to escape the full liability imposed under agency law. The state provides these forms because it has an interest in the strength of the companies that provide jobs and services therein, but also has an interest in monitoring and regulating their behavior.Companies law studyLaw schools typically offer either a single upper level course on business organizations, or offer several courses covering different aspects of this area of law. The area of study examines issues such as how each major form of business entity may be formed, operated, and dissolved; the degree to which limited liability protects investors; the extent to which a business can be held liable for the acts of an agent of the business; the relative advantages and disadvantages of different types of business organizations, and the structures established by governments to monitor the buying and selling of ownership interests in large corporations.The basic theory behind all business organizations is that, by combining certain functions within a single entity, a business (usually called a firm by economists) can operate more efficiently, and thereby realize a greater profit. Governments seek to facilitate investment in profitable operations by creating rules that protect investors in a business from being held personally liable for debts incurred by that business, either through mismanagement, or because of wrongful acts committed by the business[citation needed].See also Business ethics Corporate crime Corporate law Corporation sole European Company Statute

Business processFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to: navigation, search Not to be confused with business strategy.This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (September 2010)

A business process or business method is a collection of related, structured activities or tasks that produce a specific service or product (serve a particular goal) for a particular customer or customers. It often can be visualized with a flowchart as a sequence of activities with interleaving decision points or with a Process Matrix as a sequence of activities with relevance rules based on the data in the process.Contents 1 Overview 2 History 2.1 Adam Smith 2.2 Other definitions 3 Importance of the Process Chain 4 Policies, Processes and Procedures 5 Manual / Administrative vs. Computer System-Based Internal Controls 6 Information Reports as an Essential Base for Executing Business Processes 7 Supporting theories and concepts 7.1 Span of control 7.2 Information management concepts 8 See also 9 References 10 Further readingOverviewThere are three types of business processes:1. Management processes, the processes that govern the operation of a system. Typical management processes include "corporate governance" and "strategic management".2. Operational processes, processes that constitute the core business and create the primary value stream. Typical operational processes are purchasing, manufacturing, advertising and marketing, and sales.3. Supporting processes, which support the core processes. Examples include accounting, recruitment, call center, technical support.A business process begins with a mission objective and ends with achievement of the business objective. Process-oriented organizations break down the barriers of structural departments and try to avoid functional silos.A business process can be decomposed into several sub-processes,[1] which have their own attributes, but also contribute to achieving the goal of the super-process. The analysis of business processes typically includes the mapping of processes and sub-processes down to activity level.Business Processes are designed to add value for the customer and should not include unnecessary activities. The outcome of a well designed business process is increased effectiveness (value for the customer) and increased efficiency (less costs for the company).Business Processes can be modeled through a large number of methods and techniques. For instance, the Business Process Modeling Notation is a Business Process Modeling technique that can be used for drawing business processes in a workflow.HistoryAdam SmithOne of the most significant people in 18th century to describe processes was Adam Smith in his famous (1776) example of a pin factory. Inspired by an article in Diderot's Encyclopdie, Smith described the production of a pin in the following way:One man draws out the wire, another straights it, a third cuts it, a fourth points it, a fifth grinds it at the top for receiving the head: to make the head requires two or three distinct operations: to put it on is a particular business, to whiten the pins is another ... and the important business of making a pin is, in this manner, divided into about eighteen distinct operations, which in some manufactories are all performed by distinct hands, though in others the same man will sometime perform two or three of them.Smith also first recognized how the output could be increased through the use of labor division. Previously, in a society where production was dominated by handcrafted goods, one man would perform all the activities required during the production process, while Smith described how the work was divided into a set of simple tasks, which would be performed by specialized workers. The result of labor division in Smiths example resulted in productivity increasing by 24,000 percent (sic), i.e. that the same number of workers made 240 times as many pins as they had been producing before the introduction of labor division.It is worth noting that Smith did not advocate labor division at any price and per se. The appropriate level of task division was defined through experimental design of the production process. In contrast to Smith's view which was limited to the same functional domain and comprised activities that are in direct sequence in the manufacturing process, today's process concept includes cross-functionality as an important characteristic. Following his ideas the division of labor was adopted widely, while the integration of tasks into a functional, or cross-functional, process was not considered as an alternative option until much later.Other definitionsIn the early 1990s, US corporations, and subsequently companies all over the world, started to adopt the concept of reengineering in an attempt to re-achieve the competitiveness that they had lost during the previous decade. A key characteristic of Business Process Reengineering (BPR) is the focus on business processes. Davenport (1993)[2] defines a (business) process as:a structured, measured set of activities designed to produce a specific output for a particular customer or market. It implies a strong emphasis on how work is done within an organization, in contrast to a product focuss emphasis on what. A process is thus a specific ordering of work activities across time and space, with a beginning and an end, and clearly defined inputs and outputs: a structure for action. ... Taking a process approach implies adopting the customers point of view. Processes are the structure by which an organization does what is necessary to produce value for its customers.This definition contains certain characteristics a process must possess. These characteristics are achieved by a focus on the business logic of the process (how work is done), instead of taking a product perspective (what is done). Following Davenport's definition of a process we can conclude that a process must have clearly defined boundaries, input and output, that it consists of smaller parts, activities, which are ordered in time and space, that there must be a receiver of the process outcome- a customer - and that the transformation taking place within the process must add customer value.Hammer & Champys (1993)[3] definition can be considered as a subset of Davenports. They define a process as:a collection of activities that takes one or more kinds of input and creates an output that is of value to the customer.As we can note, Hammer & Champy have a more transformation oriented perception, and put less emphasis on the structural component process boundaries and the order of activities in time and space.Rummler & Brache (1995)[4] use a definition that clearly encompasses a focus on the organizations external customers, when stating thata business process is a series of steps designed to produce a product or service. Most processes (...) are cross-functional, spanning the white space between the boxes on the organization chart. Some processes result in a product or service that is received by an organization's external customer. We call these primary processes. Other processes produce products that are invisible to the external customer but essential to the effective management of the business. We call these support processes.The above definition distinguishes two types of processes, primary and support processes, depending on whether a process is directly involved in the creation of customer value, or concerned with the organizations internal activities. In this sense, Rummler and Brache's definition follows Porter's value chain model, which also builds on a division of primary and secondary activities. According to Rummler and Brache, a typical characteristic of a successful process-based organization is the absence of secondary activities in the primary value flow that is created in the customer oriented primary processes. The characteristic of processes as spanning the white space on the organization chart indicates that processes are embedded in some form of organizational structure. Also, a process can be cross-functional, i.e. it ranges over several business functions.Finally, let us consider the process definition of Johansson et al. (1993).[5] They define a process as:a set of linked activities that take an input and transform it to create an output. Ideally, the transformation that occurs in the process should add value to the input and create an output that is more useful and effective to the recipient either upstream or downstream.This definition also emphasizes the constitution of links between activities and the transformation that takes place within the process. Johansson et al. also include the upstream part of the value chain as a possible recipient of the process output. Summarizing the four definitions above, we can compile the following list of characteristics for a business process:1. Definability: It must have clearly defined boundaries, input and output.2. Order: It must consist of activities that are ordered according to their position in time and space.3. Customer: There must be a recipient of the process' outcome, a customer.4. Value-adding: The transformation taking place within the process must add value to the recipient, either upstream or downstream.5. Embeddedness: A process can not exist in itself, it must be embedded in an organizational structure.6. Cross-functionality: A process regularly can, but not necessarily must, span several functions.Frequently, a process owner, i.e. a person being responsible for the performance and continuous improvement of the process, is also considered as a prerequisite...Importance of the Process ChainBusiness processes comprise a set of sequential sub-processes or tasks, with alternative paths depending on certain conditions as applicable, performed to achieve a given objective or produce given outputs. Each process has one or more needed inputs. The inputs and outputs may be received from, or sent to other business processes, other organizational units, or internal or external stakeholders.Business processes are designed to be operated by one or more business functional units, and emphasize the importance of the process chain rather than the individual units.In general, the various tasks of a business process can be performed in one of two ways1. manually and2. by means of business data processing systems such as ERP systems.Typically, some process tasks will be manual, while some will be computer-based, and these tasks may be sequenced in many ways. In other words, the data and information that are being handled through the process may pass through manual or computer tasks in any given order.Policies, Processes and ProceduresThe above improvement areas are equally applicable to policies, processes and detailed procedures (sub-processes/tasks). There is a cascading effect of improvements made at a higher level on those made at a lower level.For instance, if a recommendation to replace a given policy with a better one is made with proper justification and accepted in principle by business process owners, then corresponding changes in the consequent processes and procedures will follow naturally in order to enable implementation of the policiesManual / Administrative vs. Computer System-Based Internal ControlsInternal controls can be built into manual / administrative process steps and / or computer system procedures.It is advisable to build in as many system controls as possible, since these controls, being automatic, will always be exercised since they are built into the design of the business system software. For instance, an error message preventing an entry of a received raw material quantity exceeding the purchase order quantity by greater than the permissible tolerance percentage will always be displayed and will prevent the system user from entering such a quantity.However, for various reasons such as practicality, the need to be flexible (whatever that may signify), lack of business domain knowledge and experience, difficulties in designing/writing software, cost of software development/modification, the incapability of a computerised system to provide controls, etc., all internal controls otherwise considered to be necessary are often not built into business systems and software.In such a scenario, the manual, administrative process controls outside the computer system should be clearly documented, enforced and regularly exercised. For instance, while entering data to create a new record in a material system databases item master table, the only internal control that the system can provide over the item description field is not to allow the user to leave the description blank in other words, configure item description as a mandatory field. The system obviously cannot alert the user that the description is wrongly spelt, inappropriate, nonsensical, etc.In the absence of such a system-based internal control, the item creation process must include a suitable administrative control through the detailed checking, by a responsible officer, of all fields entered for the new item, by comparing a print-out taken from the system with the item data entry sheet, and ensuring that any corrections in the item description (and other similar fields where no system control is possible) are promptly carried out.Last but not least, the introduction of effective manual, administrative controls usually requires an overriding periodic check by a higher authority to ensure that such controls are exercised in the first place.Information Reports as an Essential Base for Executing Business ProcessesBusiness processes must include up-to-date and accurate reports to ensure effective action. An example of this is the availability of purchase order status reports for supplier delivery follow-up as described in the section on effectiveness above. There are numerous examples of this in every possible business process.Another example from production is the process of analysis of line rejections occurring on the shop floor. This process should include systematic periodical analysis of rejections by reason, and present the results in a suitable information report that pinpoints the major reasons, and trends in these reasons, for management to take corrective actions to control rejections and keep them within acceptable limits. Such a process of analysis and summarisation of line rejection events is clearly superior to a process which merely inquires into each individual rejection as it occurs.Business process owners and operatives should realise that process improvement often occurs with introduction of appropriate transaction, operational, highlight, exception or M.I.S. reports, provided these are consciously used for day-to-day or periodical decision-making. With this understanding would hopefully come the willingness to invest time and other resources in business process improvement by introduction of useful and relevant reporting systems.Supporting theories and conceptsFrederick Winslow Taylor developed the concept of scientific management. The concept contains aspects on the division of labor being relevant to the theory and practice around business processes. The business process related aspects of Taylor's scientific management concept are discussed in the article on Business Process Reengineering.Span of controlThe span of control is the number of sub-ordinates a supervisor manages within a structural organization. Introducing a business process concept has a considerable impact on the structural elements of the organization and thus also on the span of control.Large organizations that are not organized as markets need to be organized in smaller units - departments - which can be defined according to different principles.Information management conceptsInformation Management and the organization design strategies being related to it, are a theoretical cornerstone of the business process concept.See also Business analysis Business Process Automation Business Process Definition Metamodel Business process improvement Business process management Business process mapping Business process modeling Business Process Modeling Notation Business process outsourcing Business process reengineering

Business process reengineeringFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to: navigation, search

Business Process Reengineering CycleBusiness process re-engineering is a business management strategy, originally pioneered in the early 1990s, focusing on the analysis and design of workflows and processes within an organization. BPR aimed to help organizations fundamentally rethink how they do their work in order to dramatically improve customer service, cut operational costs, and become world-class competitors.[1] In the mid-1990s, as many as 60% of the Fortune 500 companies claimed to either have initiated reengineering efforts, or to have plans to do so.[2]BPR seeks to help companies radically restructure their organizations by focusing on the ground-up design of their business processes. According to Davenport (1990) a business process is a set of logically related tasks performed to achieve a defined business outcome. Re-engineering emphasized a holistic focus on business objectives and how processes related to them, encouraging full-scale recreation of processes rather than iterative optimization of subprocesses.[1]Business process re-engineering is also known as business process redesign, business transformation, or business process change management.Contents 1 Overview 2 History 2.1 Reengineering Work: Don't Automate, Obliterate, 1990 2.2 Development after 1995 3 Business process reengineering topics 3.1 The role of information technology 3.2 Research and methodology 4 BPR success & failure factors 4.1 Organization wide commitment 4.2 BPR team composition 4.3 Business needs analysis 4.4 Adequate IT infrastructure 4.5 Effective change management 4.6 Ongoing Continuous Improvement 5 Critique 6 See also 7 References 8 Further reading 9 External linksOverview

Reengineering guidance and relationship of Mission and Work Processes to Information Technology.Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) is basically rethinking and radically redesigning an organization's existing resources. BPR, however, is more than just business improvising; it is an approach for redesigning the way work is done to better support the organization's mission and reduce costs. Reengineering starts with a high-level assessment of the organization's mission, strategic goals, and customer needs. Basic questions are asked, such as "Does our mission need to be redefined? Are our strategic goals aligned with our mission? Who are our customers?" An organization may find that it is operating on questionable assumptions, particularly in terms of the wants and needs of its customers. Only after the organization rethinks what it should be doing, does it go on to decide how best to do it.[1]Within the framework of this basic assessment of mission and goals, re-engineering focuses on the organization's business processesthe steps and procedures that govern how resources are used to create products and services that meet the needs of particular customers or markets. As a structured ordering of work steps across time and place, a business process can be decomposed into specific activities, measured, modeled, and improved. It can also be completely redesigned or eliminated altogether. Re-engineering identifies, analyzes, and re-designs an organization's core business processes with the aim of achieving dramatic improvements in critical performance measures, such as cost, quality, service, and speed.[1]Re-engineering recognizes that an organization's business processes are usually fragmented into subprocesses and tasks that are carried out by several specialized functional areas within the organization. Often, no one is responsible for the overall performance of the entire process. Re-engineering maintains that optimizing the performance of subprocesses can result in some benefits, but cannot yield dramatic improvements if the process itself is fundamentally inefficient and outmoded. For that reason, re-engineering focuses on re-designing the process as a whole in order to achieve the greatest possible benefits to the organization and their customers. This drive for realizing dramatic improvements by fundamentally re-thinking how the organization's work should be done distinguishes re-engineering from process improvement efforts that focus on functional or incremental improvement.[1]HistoryBusiness process re-engineering (BPR) began as a private sector technique to help organizations fundamentally rethink how they do their work in order to dramatically improve customer service, cut operational costs, and become world-class competitors. A key stimulus for re-engineering has been the continuing development and deployment of sophisticated information systems and networks. Leading organizations are becoming bolder in using this technology to support innovative business processes, rather than refining current ways of doing work.[1]Reengineering Work: Don't Automate, Obliterate, 1990In 1990, Michael Hammer, a former professor of computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), published the article "Reengineering Work: Don't Automate, Obliterate" in the Harvard Business Review, in which he claimed that the major challenge for managers is to obliterate forms of work that do not add value, rather than using technology for automating it.[3] This statement implicitly accused managers of having focused on the wrong issues, namely that technology in general, and more specifically information technology, has been used primarily for automating existing processes rather than using it as an enabler for making non-value adding work obsolete.Hammer's claim was simple: Most of the work being done does not add any value for customers, and this work should be removed, not accelerated through automation. Instead, companies should reconsiditors, their inability to satisfy customer needs, and their insufficient cost structure[citation needed]. Even well established management thinkers, such as Peter Drucker and Tom Peters, were accepting and advocating BPR as a new tool for (re-)achieving success in a dynamic world.[4] During the following years, a fast growing number of publications, books as well as journal articles, were dedicated to BPR, and many consulting firms embarked on this trend and developed BPR methods. However, the critics were fast to claim that BPR was a way to dehumanize the work place, increase managerial control, and to justify downsizing, i.e. major reductions of the work force,[5] and a rebirth of Taylorism under a different label.Despite this critique, reengineering was adopted at an accelerating pace and by 1993, as many as 60% of the Fortune 500 companies claimed to either have initiated reengineering efforts, or to have plans to do so.[2] This trend was fueled by the fast adoption of BPR by the consulting industry, but also by the study Made in America,[6] conducted by MIT, that showed how companies in many US industries had lagged behind their foreign counterparts in terms of competitiveness, time-to-market and productivity.Development after 1995With the publication of critiques in 1995 and 1996 by some of the early BPR proponents[citation needed], coupled with abuses and misuses of the concept by others, the reengineering fervor in the U.S. began to wane. Since then, considering business processes as a starting point for business analysis and redesign has become a widely accepted approach and is a standard part of the change methodology portfolio, but is typically performed in a less radical way as originally proposed.More recently, the concept of Business Process Management (BPM) has gained major attention in the corporate world and can be considered as a successor to the BPR wave of the 1990s, as it is evenly driven by a striving for process efficiency supported by information technology. Equivalently to the critique brought forward against BPR, BPM is now accused[citation needed] of focusing on technology and disregarding the people aspects of change.Business process reengineering topicsThe most notable definitions of reengineering are: "... the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical contemporary modern measures of performance, such as cost, quality, service, and speed."[7] "encompasses the envisioning of new work strategies, the actual process design activity, and the implementation of the change in all its complex technological, human, and organizational dimensions."[8]BPR is different from other approaches to organization development (OD), especially the continuous improvement or TQM movement, by virtue of its aim for fundamental and radical change rather than iterative improvement.[9] In order to achieve the major improvements BPR is seeking for, the change of structural organizational variables, and other ways of managing and performing work is often considered as being insufficient. For being able to reap the achievable benefits fully, the use of information technology (IT) is conceived as a major contributing factor. While IT traditionally has been used for supporting the existing business functions, i.e. it was used for increasing organizational efficiency, it now plays a role as enabler of new organizational forms, and patterns of collaboration within and between organizations[citation needed].BPR derives its existence from different disciplines, and four major areas can be identified as being subjected to change in BPR - organization, technology, strategy, and people - where a process view is used as common framework for considering these dimensions.Business strategy is the primary driver of BPR initiatives and the other dimensions are governed by strategy's encompassing role. The organization dimension reflects the structural elements of the company, such as hierarchical levels, the composition of organizational units, and the distribution of work between them[citation needed]. Technology is concerned with the use of computer systems and other forms of communication technology in the business. In BPR, information technology is generally considered as playing a role as enabler of new forms of organizing and collaborating, rather than supporting existing business functions. The people / human resources dimension deals with aspects such as education, training, motivation and reward systems. The concept of business processes - interrelated activities aiming at creating a value added output to a customer - is the basic underlying idea of BPR. These processes are characterized by a number of attributes: Process ownership, customer focus, value adding, and cross-functionality.The role of information technologyInformation technology (IT) has historically played an important role in the reengineering concept.[10] It is considered by some as a major enabler for new forms of working and collaborating within an organization and across organizational borders[citation needed].BPR literature [11] identified several so called disruptive technologies that were supposed to challenge traditional wisdom about how work should be performed. Shared databases, making information available at many places Expert systems, allowing generalists to perform specialist tasks Telecommunication networks, allowing organizations to be centralized and decentralized at the same time Decision-support tools, allowing decision-making to be a part of everybody's job Wireless data communication and portable computers, allowing field personnel to work office independent Interactive videodisk, to get in immediate contact with potential buyers Automatic identification and tracking, allowing things to tell where they are, instead of requiring to be found High performance computing,and school, allowing on-the-fly planning and revisioningIn the mid-1990s, especially workflow management systems were considered as a significant contributor to improved process efficiency. Also ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) vendors, such as SAP, JD Edwards, Oracle, PeopleSoft, positioned their solutions as vehicles for business process redesign and improvement.Research and methodology

Model based on PRLC approachAlthough the labels and steps differ slightly, the early methodologies that were rooted in IT-centric BPR solutions share many of the same basic principles and elements. The following outline is one such model, based on the PRLC (Process Reengineering Life Cycle) approach developed by Guha.[12] Simplified schematic outline of using a business process approach, exemplified for pharmaceutical R&D1. Structural organization with functional units2. Introduction of New Product Development as cross-functional process3. Re-structuring and streamlining activities, removal of non-value adding tasksBenefiting from lessons learned from the early adopters, some BPR practitioners advocated a change in emphasis to a customer-centric, as opposed to an IT-centric, methodology. One such methodology, that also incorporated a Risk and Impact Assessment to account for the impact that BPR can have on jobs and operations, was described by Lon Roberts (1994).[13] Roberts also stressed the use of change management tools to proactively address resistance to changea factor linked to the demise of many reengineering initiatives that looked good on the drawing board.Some items to use on a process analysis checklist are: Reduce handoffs, Centralize data, Reduce delays, Free resources faster, Combine similar activities. Also within the management consulting industry, a significant number of methodological approaches have been developed.[14]BPR success & failure factorsOver the past years, BPR projects and efforts have revealed some interesting findings for both academics and practitioners. Some BPR researchers have focused on key factors in the BPR process that enabled a successful outcome. Many lessons were learned and many elements were identified as essential to the success of a BPR activity. Some important BPR success factors, which will be discussed in further details later, include, but are not limited to the following:1. Organization wide commitment.2. BPR team composition.3. Business needs analysis.4. Adequate IT infrastructure.5. Effective change management.6. Ongoing continuous improvementGenerally, BPR does not only mean change, but rather dramatic change. The constituents of this drastic change include the overhaul of organizational structures, management systems, employee responsibilities and performance measurements, incentive systems, skills development, and the use of IT. BPR can potentially impact every aspect of how business is conducted today. Change on this scale can cause results ranging from enviable success to complete failure. In spite of the depth of change involved in undertaking BPR efforts, a recent survey showed that some 88 percent of CIOs were satisfied with the end result of BPR efforts.[15] Successful BPR can result in enormous reductions in cost or cycle time. It can also potentially create substantial improvements in quality, customer service, or other business objectives. The promise of BPR is not empty; it can actually produce revolutionary improvements for business operations. Reengineering can help an aggressive company to stay on top, or transform an organization on the verge of bankruptcy into an effective competitor. The successes have spawned international interest, and major reengineering efforts are now being conducted around the world.[16]On the other hand, BPR projects can fail to meet the inherently high expectations of reengineering. In 1998, it was reported that only 30 percent of reengineering projects were regarded as successful.[17] The earlier promise of BPR has not been fulfilled as some organizations have put forth extensive BPR efforts only to achieve marginal, or even negligible, benefits. Other organizations have succeeded only in destroying the morale and momentum built up over their lifetime. These failures indicate that reengineering involves a great deal of risk. Even so, many companies are willing to take that risk because the rewards can be astounding.[16]Many unsuccessful BPR attempts may have been due to the confusion surrounding BPR, and how it should be performed. Organizations were well aware that changes needed to be made, but did not know which areas to change or how to change them. As a result, process reengineering is a management concept that has been formed by trial and error or, in other words, practical experience. As more and more businesses reengineer their processes, knowledge of what caused the successes or failures is becoming apparent.[16] To reap lasting benefits, companies must be willing to examine how strategy and reengineering complement each other by learning to quantify strategy in terms of cost, milestones, and timetables, by accepting ownership of the strategy throughout the organization, by assessing the organizations current capabilities and process realistically, and by linking strategy to the budgeting process. Otherwise, BPR is only a short-term efficiency exercise.[18]Organization wide commitmentThere is no doubt that major changes to business processes have a direct impact on processes, technology, job roles, and workplace culture. Significant changes to even one of those areas require resources, money, and leadership. Changing them simultaneously is an extraordinary task.[16] Like any large and complex undertaking, implementing reengineering requires the talents and energies of a broad spectrum of experts. Since BPR can involve multiple areas within the organization, it is extremely important to get support from all affected departments. Through the involvement of selected department members, the organization can gain valuable input before a process is implemented; a step which promotes both the cooperation and the vital acceptance of the reengineered process by all segments of the organization.Getting enterprise wide commitment involves the following: top management sponsorship, bottom-up buy-in from process users, dedicated BPR team, and budget allocation for the total solution with measures to demonstrate value. Before any BPR project can be implemented successfully, there must be a commitment to the project by the management of the organization, and strong leadership must be provided.[19] Reengineering efforts can by no means be exercised without a company-wide commitment to the goals to be achieved. However, top management sponsorship is imperative for success.[20] Commitment and leadership in the upper echelons of management are often cited as the most important factors of a successful BPR project.[21] Top management must recognize the need for change, develop a complete understanding of what is BPR, and plan how to achieve it.[15]Leadership has to be effective, strong, visible, and creative in thinking and understanding in order to provide a clear vision to the future.[22] Convincing every affected group within the organization of the need for BPR is a key step in successfully implementing a process. By informing all affected groups at every stage, and emphasizing the positive end results of the reengineering process, it is possible to minimize resistance to change and increase the odds for success. The ultimate success of BPR depends on the strong, consistent, and continuous involvement of all departmental levels within the organization. It also depends on the people who do it and how well they can be motivated to be creative and to apply their detailed knowledge to the redesign of business processes.[23]BPR team compositionOnce organization wide commitment has been secured from all departments involved in the reengineering effort and at different levels, the critical step of selecting a BPR team must be taken. This team will form the nucleus of the BPR effort, make key decisions and recommendations, and help communicate the details and benefits of the BPR program to the entire organization. The determinants of an effective BPR team may be summarized as follows: competency of the members of the team, their motivation,[24] their credibility within the organization and their creativity,[25] team empowerment, training of members in process mapping and brainstorming techniques,[26] effective team leadership,[27] proper organization of the team,[28] complementary skills among team members, adequate size, interchangeable accountability, clarity of work approach, and specificity of goals.[29]The most effective BPR teams include active representatives from the following work groups: top management, business area responsible for the process being addressed, technology groups, finance, and members of all ultimate process users groups. Team members who are selected from each work group within the organization will have an impact on the outcome of the reengineered process according to their desired requirements. The BPR team should be mixed in depth and knowledge. For example, it may include members with the following characteristics: Members who do not know the process at all. Members who know the process inside-out. Customers, if possible. Members representing impacted departments. One or two members of the best, brightest, passionate, and committed technology experts. Members from outside of the organization [20]Moreover, Covert (1997) recommends that in order to have an effective BPR team, it must be kept under ten players. If the organization fails to keep the team at a manageable size, the entire process will be much more difficult to execute efficiently and effectively. The efforts of the team must be focused on identifying breakthrough opportunities and designing new work steps or processes that will create quantum gains and competitive advantage.[15]Business needs analysisAnother important factor in the success of any BPR effort is performing a thorough business needs analysis. Too often, BPR teams jump directly into the technology without first assessing the current processes of the organization and determining what exactly needs reengineering. In this analysis phase, a series of sessions should be held with process owners and stakeholders, regarding the need and strategy for BPR. These sessions build a consensus as to the vision of the ideal business process. They help identify essential goals for BPR within each department and then collectively define objectives for how the project will impact each work group or department on individual basis and the business organization as a whole. The idea of these sessions is to conceptualize the ideal business process for the organization and build a business process model. Those items that seem unnecessary or unrealistic may be eliminated or modified later on in the diagnosing stage of the BPR project. It is important to acknowledge and evaluate all ideas in order to make all participants feel that they are a part of this important and crucial process. Results of these meetings will help formulate the basic plan for the project.This plan includes the following: identifying specific problem areas, solidifying particular goals, and defining business objectives.The business needs analysis contributes tremendously to the reengineering effort by helping the BPR team to prioritize and determine where it should focus its improvements efforts.[20]The business needs analysis also helps in relating the BPR project goals back to key business objectives and the overall strategic direction for the organization. This linkage should show the thread from the top to the bottom of the organization, so each person can easily connect the overall business direction with the reengineering effort. This alignment must be demonstrated from the perspective of financial performance, customer service, associate value, and the vision for the organization.[16] Developing a business vision and process objectives relies, on the one hand, on a clear understanding of organizational strengths, weaknesses, and market structure, and on the other, on awareness and knowledge about innovative activities undertaken by competitors and other organizations.[30]BPR projects that are not in alignment with the organizations strategic direction can be counterproductive. There is always a possibility that an organization may make significant investments in an area that is not a core competency for the company and later outsource this capability. Such reengineering initiatives are wasteful and steal resources from other strategic projects. Moreover, without strategic alignment, the organizations key stakeholders and sponsors may find themselves unable to provide the level of support the organization needs in terms of resources, especially if there are other more critical projects to the future of the business, and are more aligned with the strategic direction.[16]Adequate IT infrastructureResearchers consider adequate IT infrastructure reassessment and composition as a vital factor in successful BPR implementation.[22] Hammer (1990) prescribes the use of IT to challenge the assumptions inherent in the work process that have existed since long before the advent of modern computer and communications technology.[31] Factors related to IT infrastructure have been increasingly considered by many researchers and practitioners as a vital component of successful BPR efforts.[32] Effective alignment of IT infrastructure and BPR strategy, building an effective IT infrastructure, adequate IT infrastructure investment decision, adequate measurement of IT infrastructure effectiveness, proper information systems (IS) integration, effective reengineering of legacy IS, increasing IT function competency, and effective use of software tools are the most important factors that contribute to the success of BPR projects.These are vital factors that contribute to building an effective IT infrastructure for business processes.[22] BPR must be accompanied by strategic planning which addresses leveraging IT as a competitive tool.[33] An IT infrastructure is made up of physical assets, intellectual assets, shared services,[34] and their linkages.[35] The way in which the IT infrastructure components are composed and their linkages determines the extent to which information resources can be delivered. An effective IT infrastructure composition process follows a top-down approach, beginning with business strategy and IS strategy and passing through designs of data, systems, and computer architecture.[36]Linkages between the IT infrastructure components, as well as descriptions of their contexts of interaction, are important for ensuring integrity and consistency among the IT infrastructure components.[32] Furthermore, IT standards have a major role in reconciling various infrastructure components to provide shared IT services that are of a certain degree of effectiveness to support business process applications, as well as to guide the process of acquiring, managing, and utilizing IT assets.[35] The IT infrastructure shared services and the human IT infrastructure components, in terms of their responsibilities and their needed expertise, are both vital to the process of the IT infrastructure composition. IT strategic alignment is approached through the process of integration between business and IT strategies, as well as between IT and organizational infrastructures.[22]Most analysts view BPR and IT as irrevocably linked. Walmart, for example, would not have been able to reengineer the processes used to procure and distribute mass-market retail goods without IT. Ford was able to decrease its headcount in the procurement department by 75 percent by using IT in conjunction with BPR, in another well-known example.[33] The IT infrastructure and BPR are interdependent in the sense that deciding the information requirements for the new business processes determines the IT infrastructure constituents, and a recognition of IT capabilities provides alternatives for BPR.[32] Building a responsive IT infrastructure is highly dependent on an appropriate determination of business process information needs. This, in turn, is determined by the types of activities embedded in a business process, and their sequencing and reliance on other organizational processes.[37]Effective change managementAl-Mashari and Zairi (2000) suggest that BPR involves changes in people behavior and culture, processes, and technology. As a result, there are many factors that prevent the effective implementation of BPR and hence restrict innovation and continuous improvement. Change management, which involves all human and social related changes and cultural adjustment techniques needed by management to facilitate the insertion of newly designed processes and structures into working practice and to deal effectively with resistance,[26] is considered by many researchers to be a crucial component of any BPR effort.[38] One of the most overlooked obstacles to successful BPR project implementation is resistance from those whom implementers believe will benefit the most. Most projects underestimate the cultural impact of major process and structural change and as a result, do not achieve the full potential of their change effort. Many people fail to understand that change is not an event, but rather a management technique.Change management is the discipline of managing change as a process, with due consideration that employees are people, not programmable machines.[16] Change is implicitly driven by motivation which is fueled by the recognition of the need for change. An important step towards any successful reengineering effort is to convey an understanding of the necessity for change.[20] It is a well-known fact that organizations do not change unless people change; the better change is managed, the less painful the transition is.Organizational culture is a determining factor in successful BPR implementation.[39] Organizational culture influences the organizations ability to adapt to change. Culture in an organization is a self-reinforcing set of beliefs, attitudes, and behavior. Culture is one of the most resistant elements of organizational behavior and is extremely difficult to change. BPR must consider current culture in order to change these beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors effectively. Messages conveyed from management in an organization continually enforce current culture. Change is implicitly driven by motivation which is fueled by the recognition of the need for change.The first step towards any successful transformation effort is to convey an understanding of the necessity for change.[20] Management rewards system, stories of company origin and early successes of founders, physical symbols, and company icons constantly enforce the message of the current culture. Implementing BPR successfully is dependent on how thoroughly management conveys the new cultural messages to the organization.[19] These messages provide people in the organization with a guideline to predict the outcome of acceptable behavior patterns. People should be the focus for any successful business change.BPR is not a recipe for successful business transformation if it focuses on only computer technology and process redesign. In fact, many BPR projects have failed because they did not recognize the importance of the human element in implementing BPR. Understanding the people in organizations, the current company culture, motivation, leadership, and past performance is essential to recognize, understand, and integrate into the vision and implementation of BPR. If the human element is given equal or greater emphasis in BPR, the odds of successful business transformation increase substantially.[19]Ongoing Continuous ImprovementMany organizational change theorists hold a common view of organizations adjusting gradually and incrementally and responding locally to individual crises as they arise [20] Common elements are: BPR is a successive and ongoing process and should be regarded as an improvement strategy that enables an organization to make the move from traditional functional orientation to one that aligns with strategic business processes.[30] Continuous improvement is defined as the propensity of the organization to pursue incremental and innovative improvements in its processes, products, and services.[20] The incremental change is governed by the knowledge gained from each previous change cycle. It is essential that the automation infrastructure of the BPR activity provides for performance measurements in order to support continuous improvements. It will need to efficiently capture appropriate data and allow access to appropriate individuals. To ensure that the process generates the desired benefits, it must be tested before it is deployed to the end users. If it does not perform satisfactorily, more time should be taken to modify the process until it does. A fundamental concept for quality practitioners is the use of feedback loops at every step of the process and an environment that encourages constant evaluation of results and individual efforts to improve.[40] At the end users level, there must be a proactive feedback mechanism that provides for and facilitates resolutions of problems and issues. This will also contribute to a continuous risk assessment and evaluation which are needed throughout the implementation process to deal with any risks at their initial state and to ensure the success of the reengineering efforts. Anticipating and planning for risk handling is important for dealing effectively with any risk when it first occurs and as early as possible in the BPR process.[41] It is interesting that many of the successful applications of reengineering described by its proponents are in organizations practicing continuous improvement programs. Hammer and Champy (1993) use the IBM Credit Corporation as well as Ford and Kodak, as examples of companies that carried out BPR successfully due to the fact that they had long-running continuous improvement programs.[40]In conclusion, successful BPR can potentially create substantial improvements in the way organizations do business and can actually produce fundamental improvements for business operations. However, in order to achieve that, there are some key success factors that must be taken into consideration when performing BPR.BPR success factors are a collection of lessons learned from reengineering projects and from these lessons common themes have emerged. In addition, the ultimate success of BPR depends on the people who do it and on how well they can be committed and motivated to be creative and to apply their detailed knowledge to the reengineering initiative. Organizations planning to undertake BPR must take into consideration the success factors of BPR in order to ensure that their reengineering related change efforts are comprehensive, well-implemented, and have minimum chance of failure.CritiqueMany companies used reengineering as an pretext to downsize their companies dramatically, though this was not the intent of reengineering's proponents; consequently, reengineering earned a reputation for being synonymous with downsizing and layoffs.[42]In many circumstances, reengineering has not always lived up to its expectations. Some prominent reasons include: 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[citation needed].Others have claimed that reengineering was a recycled buzzword for commonly-held ideas. Abrahamson (1996) argued 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).The most frequent critique against BPR concerns the strict focus on efficiency and technology and the disregard of people in the organization that is subjected to a reengineering initiative. Very often, the label BPR was used for major workforce reductions. Thomas Davenport, an early BPR proponent, stated that:"When I wrote about "business process redesign" in 1990, I explicitly said that using it for cost reduction alone was not a sensible goal. And consultants Michael Hammer and James Champy, the two names most closely associated with reengineering, have insisted all along that layoffs shouldn't be the point. But the fact is, once out of the bottle, the reengineering genie quickly turned ugly." [43]Hammer similarly admitted that:"I wasn't smart enough about that. I was reflecting my engineering background and was insufficient appreciative of the human dimension. I've learned that's critical." [44]See also Business Process Management Business Process Improvement Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) Kaizen Process improvement WorkflowReferencesThis article incorporatespublic domain material from the United States General Accounting Office document "Business Process Re-engineering Assessment Guide, May 1997".1. ^ a b c d e f Business Process Re-engineering Assessment Guide, United States General Accounting Office, May 1997.2. ^ a b Hamscher, Walter: "AI in Business-Process Reengineering", AI Magazine Voume 15 Number 4, 19943. ^ (Hammer 1990)4. ^ Forbes: Reengineering, The Hot New Managing Tool, August 23, 19935. ^ (Greenbaum 1995, Industry Week 1994)6. ^ Michael L. Dertouzos, Robert M. Solow and Richard K. Lester (1989) Made In America: Regaining the Productive Edge". MIT press.7. ^ Hammer and Champy (1993)8. ^ Thomas H. Davenport (1993)9. ^ Johansson et al. (1993): "Business Process Reengineering, although a close relative, seeks radical rather than merely continuous improvement. It escalates the efforts of JIT and TQM to make process orientation a strategic tool and a core competence of the organization. BPR concentrates on core business processes, and uses the specific techniques within the JIT and TQM toolboxes as enablers, while broadening the process vision."10. ^ Business efficiency: IT can help paint a bigger picture, Financial Times, featuring Ian Manocha, Lynne Munns and Andy Cross11. ^ e.g. Hammer & Champy (1993),12. ^ Guha et al. (1993)13. ^ Lon Roberts (1994) Process reengineering: the key to achieving breakthrough success.14. ^ A set of short papers, outlining and comparing some of them can be found here, followed by some guidelines for companies considering to contract a consultancy for a BPR initiative: Overview Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) Bain & Co. Boston Consulting Group McKinsey & Co. Comparison Guidelines for BPR consulting clients15. ^ a b c (Motwani, et al., 1998)16. ^ a b c d e f g (Covert, 1997)17. ^ (Galliers, 1998)18. ^ (Berman, 1994)19. ^ a b c (Campbell & Kleiner, 1997)20. ^ a b c d e f g (Dooley & Johnson, 2001)21. ^ (Jackson, 1997)22. ^ a b c d (Al-Mashari & Zairi, 1999)23. ^ (King, 1994)24. ^ (Rastogi, 1994)25. ^ (Barrett, 1994)26. ^ a b (Carr, 1993)27. ^ (Berrington & Oblich, 1995)28. ^ (Guha, et al., 1993)29. ^ (Katzenbach & Smith, 1993)30. ^ a b (Vakola & Rezgui, 2000)31. ^ (Malhotra, 1998)32. ^ a b c (Ross, 1998)33. ^ a b (Weicher, et al., 1995)34. ^ (Broadbent & Weill, 1997)35. ^ a b (Kayworth, et al., 1997)36. ^ (Malhotra, 1996)37. ^ (Sabherwal & King, 1991)38. ^ (Towers, 1996)39. ^ (Zairi & Sinclair, 1995)40. ^ a b (Gore, 1999)41. ^ (Clemons, 1995)42. ^ [1]43. ^ (Davenport, 1995)44. ^ (White, 1996)Further reading Abrahamson, E. (1996). Management fashion, Academy of Management Review, 21, 254-285. Champy, J. (1995). Reengineering Management, Harper Business Books, New York. Davenport, Thomas & Short, J. (1990), "The New Industrial Engineering: Information Technology and Business Process Redesign", in: Sloan Management Review, Summer 1990, pp 1127 Davenport, Thomas (1993), Process Innovation: Reengineering work through information technology, Harvard Business School Press, Boston Davenport, Thomas (1995), Reengineering - The Fad That Forgot People, Fast Company, November 1995. Drucker, Peter (1972), "Work and Tools", in: W. Kranzberg and W.H. Davenport (eds), Technology and Culture, 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.4757. "PDF" Greenbaum, Joan (1995), Windows on the workplace, Cornerstone Guha, S.; Kettinger, W.J. & Teng, T.C., Business Process Reengineering: Building a Comprehensive Methodology, Information Systems Management, Summer 1993 Hammer, M., (1990). "Reengineering Work: Don't Automate, Obliterate", Harvard Business Review, July/August, pp.104112. 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. Hussein, Bassam (2008), PRISM: Process Re-engineering Integrated Spiral Model, VDM Verlag [2] Industry Week (1994), "De-engineering the corporation", Industry Week article, 4/18/94 Johansson, Henry J. et al. (1993), Business Process Reengineering: BreakPoint Strategies for Market Dominance, John Wiley & Sons Leavitt, H.J. (1965), "Applied Organizational Change in Industry: Structural, Technological and Humanistic Approaches", in: James March (ed.), Handbook of Organizations, Rand McNally, Chicago Loyd, Tom (1994), "Giants with Feet of Clay", Financial Times, Dec 5 1994, p 8 Malhotra, Yogesh (1998), "Business Process Redesign: An Overview", IEEE Engineering Management Review, vol. 26, no. 3, Fall 1998. 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. Roberts, Lon (1994), Process Reengineering: The Key To Achieving Breakthrough Success, Quality Press, Milwaukee. Rummler, Geary A. and Brache, Alan P. Improving Performance: How to Manage the White Space in the Organization Chart, ISBN 0-7879-0090-7. Taylor (1911), Frederick, The principles of scientific management, Harper & Row, New York] Thompson, James D. (1969), Organizations in Action, MacGraw-Hill, New York White, JB (1996), Wall Street Journal. New York, N.Y.: Nov 26, 1996. pg. A.1 Business Process Redesign: An Overview, IEEE Engineering Management ReviewExternal linksWikimedia Commons has media related to Business Process Reengineering.

BPR Articles [3] Reengineering relationship of Mission and Work Processes to Information Technology. BPR: Decision engineering in a strained industrial and business environment

WorkflowFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to: navigation, search This article includes a list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (April 2009)

A workflow consists of a sequence of connected steps where each step follows without delay or gap and ends just before the subsequent step may begin. It is a depiction of a sequence of operations, declared as work of a person or group,[1] an organization of staff, or one or more simple or complex mechanisms. Workflow may be seen as any abstraction of real work. For control purposes, workflow may be a view of real work in a chosen aspect,[2] thus serving as a virtual representation of actual work. The flow being described may refer to a document or product that is being transferred from one step to another.Workflows may be viewed as one primitive building block to be combined with other parts of an organisation's structure such as information silos, teams, projects, policies and hierarchies.Contents 1 Related concept 2 Historical development 2.1 Beginnings in manufacturing 2.2 Maturation and growth 2.3 Quality era 3 Workflow management system 4 Examples 5 Features and phenomenology 6 Workflow improvement theories 7 Workflow components 8 Workflow applications 9 See also 10 References 11 Further reading 12 External linksRelated conceptThe concept of workflow is closely related to several fields in operations research and other areas that study the nature of work, either quantitatively or qualitatively, such as artificial intelligence (in particular, the sub-discipline of AI planning) and ethnography. The term workflow is more commonly used in particular industries, such as printing and professional domains, where it may have particular specialized meanings.1. Processes: A process is a more specific notion than workflow and can apply to physical or biological processes, for instance. In the context of concepts surrounding work, a process may be distinguished from a workflow by the fact that it has well-defined inputs, outputs and purposes, while the notion of workflow may apply more generally to any systematic pattern of activity (such as all processes occurring in a machine shop).2. Planning and scheduling: A plan is a description of the logically necessary, partially ordered set of activities required to accomplish a specific goal given certain starting conditions. A plan, when augmented with a schedule and resource allocation calculations, completely defines a particular instance of systematic processing in pursuit of a goal. A workflow may be viewed as an (often optimal or near-optimal) realization of the mechanisms required to execute the same plan repeatedly.3. Flow control is a control concept applied to workflows, to distinguish from static control of buffers of material or orders, to mean a more dynamic control of flow speed and flow volumes in motion and in process. Such orientation to dynamic aspects is the basic foundation to prepare for more advanced job shop controls, such as just-in-time or just-in-sequence.4. In-transit visibility is a monitoring concept that applies to transported material as well as to work in process or work in progress, i.e., workflows.Historical developmentThe development of the concept of workflow occurred over a series of loosely defined, overlapping, eras.Beginnings in manufacturingThe modern history of workflows can be traced to Frederick Taylor[3] and H. Gantt. Rudolf Laban and Warren Lamb contributed to this in England. Together, Taylor and Gantt launched the study of the deliberate, rational organization of work in the context of manufacturing. The types of workflow of concern to Taylor and his contemporaries primarily involved mass and energy flows. These were studied and improved using time and motion studies. While the assembly line remains the most famous example of a workflow from this era, the early thinking around work was far more sophisticated than is commonly understood. The notion of flow was more than a sequential breakdown of processing. The common conceptual models of modern operations research, including flow shops, job shops and queuing systems,[4] can be found in early forms in early 20th century industry.Information-based workflows began to grow during this era, although the concept of an information flow lacked flexibility. A particularly influential figure was Melvil Dewey (inventor of the eponymous Dewey Decimal System, who was also responsible for the development of the hanging file folder)[citation needed]. This era is thus identified with the simplest notions of workflow optimization: throughput and resource utilization.The cultural impact of workflow optimization during this era can be understood through films such as Chaplin's classic Modern Times. These concepts did not stay confined to the shop floor. One magazine invited housewives to puzzle over the fastest way to toast three slices of bread on a one-side, two-slice grill. The book Cheaper by the Dozen introduced the emerging concepts to the context of family life.Maturation and growthThe invention of the typewriter and the copier helped spread the study of the rational organization of labor from the manufacturing shop floor to the office. Filing systems and other sophisticated systems for managing physical information flows evolved. Two events provided a huge impetus to the development of formalized information workflows. First, the field of optimization theory matured and developed mathematical optimization techniques. Second, World War II and the Apollo program were unprecedented in their demands for the rational organization of work.The classic management book The Organization Man, published in 1956, culturally captured the nature of work in this era.In 1995, the publishing industry studied how traditional publishing processes could be re-engineered and streamlined into digital processes in order to reduce lagtime, as well as substantial printing and shipping costs for delivering print copies of books and journals to warehouses and subscribers. The term electronic workflow was used to describe the publishing process, from online delivery of digital manuscripts to the posting of content on the web for online access.Quality eraDuring the 1980s, two aspects of workflow organization drew heavy criticism. First, the methods pioneered by Taylor modeled humans as simple automata. The classical industrial-style organization of work was critiqued as being both dehumanizing and suboptimal in its use of the potential of human beings. Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which describes human needs for self-actualization and creative engagement in work, became a popular tool in this critique. This issue was acknowledged, but did not gain much traction otherwise.The second critique had to do with quality. Workflows optimized for a particular time became inflexible as work conditions changed. Quality, in both analytic and synthetic manifestations, transformed the nature of work through a variety of movements ranging from total quality management to Six Sigma, then to more qualitative notions of business process re-engineering (Hammers and Champy, 1991). Under the influence of the quality movement, workflows became the subject of much scrutiny and optimization efforts. Acknowledgement of the dynamic and changing nature of the demands on workflows came in the form of recognition of the phenomena associated with critical paths and moving bottlenecks.[5]The experiences with the quality movement made it clear that information flows are fundamentally different from the mass and energy flows; this inspired the first forms of rational workflows. The low cost and adaptability of information flows were seen as enabling workflows that were at once highly rational in their organization and highly flexible, adaptable and responsive. These insights unleashed a whole range of information technology at workflows in manufacturing, services and pure information work. Flexible manufacturing systems, just-in-time inventory management, and other highly agile and adaptable systems of workflow are products of this era.Workflow management systemA workflow management system is a computer system that manages and defines a series of tasks within an organization to produce a final outcome or outcomes. Workflow management systems allow the user to define different workflows for different types of jobs or processes. For example, in a manufacturing setting, a design document might be automatically routed from designer to a technical director to the production engineer. At each stage in the workflow, one individual or group is responsible for a specific task. Once the task is complete, the workflow software ensures that the individuals responsible for the next task are notified and receive the data they need to execute their stage of the process. Workflow management systems also automate redundant tasks and ensure that uncompleted tasks are followed up.Workflow management systems may control automated processes in addition to replacing paper work order transfers. For example, if the above design documents are now available as AutoCAD but the workflow requires them as Catia, then an automated process would implement the conversion prior to notifying the individual responsible for the next task. This is the concept of dependencies. A workflow management system reflects the dependencies required for the completion of each task, and aims at managing them during the execution of each task [6]Workflow management systems also appear in distributed IT environments such as Grid Computing or Cloud Computing. The aim of such systems are to manage the execution of various processes that may belong to the same application while in many cases they are used as a means to guarantee the offered Quality of service (QoS).[7]ExamplesThe following examples illustrate the variety of workflows seen in various contexts:1. In machine shops, particularly job shops and flow shops, the flow of a part through the various processing stations is a work flow.2. Insurance claims processing is an example of an information-intensive, document-driven workflow.3. Wikipedia editing is an example of a stochastic workflow.4. The Getting Things Done system is a model of personal workflow management for information workers.5. In global software development, the concept of follow-the-sun describes a process of passing unfinished work across time zones.6. In Traditional Offset and Digital Printing workflow is the process, people and usually software technology (RIPs raster image processors or DFE digital front end) controllers that play a part in pre/post processing of print related files. e.g. PDF pre-flight checking to make sure fonts are embedded or that the imaging output to plate or digital press will be able to render the document intent properly for the image output capabilities of the press that will print the final image.7. In Scientific experiments, the overall process (tasks and data flow) can be described as a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG). This DAG is referred to as a workflow, e.g. Brain Imaging workflows.[8][9]8. In healthcare data analysis, a workflow can be used to represent a sequence of steps which compose a complex data analysis (data search and data manipulation steps).[10]9. In Service-oriented architectures an application can be represented through an executable workflow, where different, possibly geographically distributed, service components interact to provide the corresponding functionality, under the control of a Workflow Management System.[11][12]Features and phenomenology1. Modeling: Workflow problems can be modeled and analyzed using graph-based formalisms like Petri nets.2. Measurement: Many of the concepts used to measure scheduling systems in operations research are useful for measuring general workflows. These include throughput, processing time, and other regular metrics.3. Specialized connotations: The term workflow has specialized connotations in information technology, document management and imaging. Since 1993, one trade consortium specifically focused on workflow management and the interoperability of workflow management systems has been the Workflow Management Coalition.4. Scientific workflow system: Found wide acceptance in the fields of bioinformatics and cheminformatics in the early 2000s, where they successfully met the need for multiple interconnected tools, handling of multiple data formats and large data quantities. Also, the paradigm of scientific workflows was close to the well-established tradition of Perl programming in life-science research organizations, so this adoption represented a natural step forward towards a more structured infrastructure setup.5. Human-machine interaction: Several conceptualizations of mixed-initiative workflows have been studied, particularly in the military, where automated agents play roles just as humans do. For innovative, adaptive, collaborative human work the techniques of human interaction management are required.6. Workflow analysis: Workflow systems allow users to develop executable processes with no familiarity with formal programming concepts. Automated workflow analysis techniques can help users analyze the properties of user workflows to conduct verification of certain properties before executing them, e.g. analyze flow control or data flow. Examples of tools based on formal analysis frameworks have been developed and used for the analysis of scientific workflows and can be extended to the analysis of other types of workflows.[13]Workflow improvement theoriesThe key driver to gain benefit from the understanding of the workflow process in a business context is that the throughput of the workstream path is modelled in such a way as to evaluate the efficiency of the flow route through internal silos with a view to increasing discrete control of uniquely identified business attributes and rules and reducing potential low efficiency drivers. Evaluation of resources, both physical and human is essential to evaluate hand-off points and potential to create smoother transitions between tasks. Several workflow improvement theories have been proposed and implemented in the modern workplace. These include:1. Six Sigma2. Total Quality Management3. Business Process Reengineering4. Lean systems5. Theory of Constraints6. Neural WorkflowAs a way of bridging the gap between the two, significant effort is being put into defining workflow patterns that can be used to compare different workflow engines across both of these domains.Workflow componentsA workflow can usually be described using formal or informal flow diagramming techniques, showing directed flows between processing steps. Single processing steps or components of a workflow can basically be defined by three parameters:1. input description: the information, material and energy required to complete the step2. transformation rules, algorithms, which may be carried out by associated human roles or machines, or a combination3. output description: the information, material and energy produced by the step and provided as input to downstream steps.Components can only be plugged together if the output of one previous (set of) component(s) is equal to the mandatory input requirements of the following component. Thus, the essential description of a component actually comprises only in- and output that are described fully in terms of data types and their meaning (semantics). The algorithms' or rules' description need only be included when there are several alternative ways to transform one type of input into one type of output possibly with different accuracy, speed, etc.When the components are non-local services that are invoked remotely via a computer network, such as Web services, additional descriptors (such as QoS and availability) also must be considered.Workflow applicationsMain article: Workflow applicationMany software systems exist to support workflows in particular domains. Such systems manage tasks such as automatic routing, partially automated processing and integration between different functional software applications and hardware systems that contribute to the value-addition process underlying the workflow.See also Bioinformatics workflow management systems Business process automation Business process management Business process modeling Business-driven development Computer-supported collaboration Enterprise content management Process architecture Process-driven application Project management Scientific workflow system Smart contractsReferences1. Jump up ^ See e.g., ISO 12052:2006, ISO.org2. Jump up ^ See e.g., ISO/TR 16044:2004, ISO.org3. Jump up ^ Taylor, 19194. Jump up ^ Pinedo, 20015. Jump up ^ Goldratt, E., 19966. Jump up ^ Li, Xiaorong, et al. "Design and Development of an Adaptive Workflow-Enabled Spatial-Temporal Analytics Framework." Parallel and Distributed Systems (ICPADS), 2012 IEEE 18th International Conference on. IEEE, 2012.7. Jump up ^ An innovative workflow mapping mechanism for Grids in the frame of Quality of Service, Elsevier.com8. Jump up ^ Brain Image Registration Analysis Workflow for fMRI Studies on Global Grids, Computer.org9. Jump up ^ A grid workflow environment for brain imaging analysis on distributed systems, Wiley.com10. Jump up ^ Huser, V.; Rasmussen, L. V.; Oberg, R.; Starren, J. B. (2011). "Implementation of workflow engine technology to deliver basic clinical decision support functionality". BMC Medical Research Methodology 11: 43. doi:10.1186/1471-2288-11-43. PMC3079703. PMID21477364. edit11. Jump up ^ Service-Oriented Architecture and Business Process Choreography in an Order Management Scenario: Rationale, Concepts, Lessons Learned, ACM.org12. Jump up ^ Workflow management for soft real-time interactive applications in virtualized environments, Elsevier.com13. Jump up ^ Curcin, V.; Ghanem, M.; Guo, Y. (2010). "The design and implementation of a workflow analysis tool". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences 368 (1926): 4193. doi:10.1098/rsta.2010.0157. editFurther reading Ryan K. L. Ko, Stephen S. G. Lee, Eng Wah Lee (2009) Business Process Management (BPM) Standards: A Survey. In: Business Process Management Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited. Volume 15 Issue 5. ISSN 1463-7154. PDF Khalid Belhajjame, Christine Collet, Genoveva Vargas-Solar: A Flexible Workflow Model for Process-Oriented Applications. WISE (1) 2001, IEEE CS, 2001. Marlon Dumas, Wil van der Aalst, Arthur ter Hofstede: Process-Aware Information Systems, Wiley, ISBN 0-471-66306-9 Layna Fischer (ed.): 2007 BPM and Workflow Handbook, Future Strategies Inc., ISBN 978-0-9777527-1-3 Layna Fischer: Workflow Handbook 2005, Future Strategies, ISBN 0-9703509-8-8 Layna Fischer: Excellence in Practice, Volume V: Innovation and Excellence in Workflow and Business Process Management, ISBN 0-9703509-5-3 Thomas L. Friedman: The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, ISBN 0-374-29288-4 Keith Harrison-Broninski. Human Interactions: The Heart and Soul of Business Process Management. ISBN 0-929652-44-4 Holly Yu: Content and Work Flow Management for Library Websites: Case Studies, Information Science Publi