selecting the best strategic practices for business process redesign

Selecting the best strategicpractices for business

process redesignPayam Hanafizadeh

Department of Industrial Management,School of Management and Accounting, Allameh Tabataba’i University,

Teheran, Iran

Morteza MoosakhaniDepartment of Public Administration, School of Management and Accounting,

Qazvin Islamic Azad University, Qazvin, Iran, and

Javad BakhshiDepartment of Industrial Management,School of Management and Accounting,

Qazvin Islamic Azad University, Qazvin, Iran

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a methodology which defines best strategicpractices for business process redesign (BPR).

Design/methodology/approach – A total of 29 best practices are studied and evaluated from theliterature. The philosophy of TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution)method is applied in recognizing the alignment of best practices with the organization strategy. Theindicators of cost, time, quality and flexibility are used as the criteria to measure the degree ofalignment of best practices with organization strategy. The proposed method is tested in a case studyof the registration process at a university.

Findings – The recent investment failures in BPR projects show that the relation between bestpractices and organization strategies should be highly considered. It is indicated that process redesigncan meet organization strategies through recognizing and implementing best strategic practices.

Research limitations/implications – Considering the fact that pundits working in the field ofBPR are not accessible, the previous published findings and results have been used in this research.

Practical implications – Owing to the limitations on budget and time, organizations are able toconsider only those best practices which play a critical vote in helping them to achieve their goals. Beststrategic practices list provides managers and business analysts with a precious resource in BPRprojects.

Originality/value – This paper presents a new methodology for introducing best strategic practicesfor BPR. A strategic best practice is a new term in the BPR literature.

Keywords Business process re-engineering, Corporate strategy, Redesign

Paper type Research paper

1. IntroductionAfter presenting the work division principle by Adam Smith and industrial revolutionin developed countries, a new theory, proposed by Hammer and Champy, was studiedby many researchers and was called different names. Among them are.

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Businessprocessredesign

609

Business Process ManagementJournal

Vol. 15 No. 4, 2009pp. 609-627

q Emerald Group Publishing Limited1463-7154

DOI 10.1108/14637150910975561

Core process redesign (Heygate, 1993; Rigby, 1993; Kaplan and Murdock, 1991),process innovation (Davenport, 1993), business process redesign (BPR; Davenport andShort, 1990), organizational reengineering (Hammer and Champy, 1993; Lowenthal, 1994),breakpoint BPR ( Johansson et al., 1993), and business restructuring (Talwar, 1993).

BPR mainly aims at creating a process-oriented attitude instead of afunctional-oriented one because the business processes provide companies, notproducts, with long-term success. Successful people in the competitive area presentgood products, not the good products cause success (Hammer and Champy, 1993).

Studies in the case of BPR indicate that the failure rate is very high in such projects(Wu, 2002; Al-Mashari and Zairi, 1999). Several reasons show that most failures aredue to the projects mismanagement (Tinnila, 1995; Al-Mashari and Zairi, 2000; Bergand Pottjewijd, 1997). Generally, BPR initiatives face two challenges (Reijers andMansar, 2005a):

(1) Technical challenge: derives from the difficulty in designing and developing theprocess; if it is adequately met, it provides the current process with fundamentaland dramatic improvement.

(2) Socio-cultural challenge: is the result of the severe organizational effects oninvolved individuals that may lead them to react against the changes.

In order to meet such challenges, different methodologies, practices and tools havebeen presented in various research such as (Kettinger et al., 1997; Valiris and Glykas,1999). One of the proposed practices for encountering technical challenges is thatanalyzers refer to the best practices. The best practices are successful experiencedmethods for facing a special problem that may happen in every setting Reijers andMansar, 2005a, Reijers and Mansar, 2005b, Reijers and Mansar, 2007). Best practicesuse professional methods to cope with the current situation and consequently enhancethe organization productivity.

Although it is suggested that BPR should be pertinent to organization’s goals andstrategies, it does not occur in reality (Wu, 2002). Therefore, it should be attempted toapply those best practices, which align with organization strategies. To achieve such agoal, simulation or practitioners’ work experiences can be exploited to provide a properanalysis of the effects of implementing the best practices on organization components.Finally, the rate of their alignment with strategies can be specified.

Hence, studying and evaluating best practices presented in BPR literature, thisresearch comes up with a methodology for identifying best strategic practices. Owingto the fact that organizations need to produce goods and present services with“low cost”, “high quality”, “high flexibility” and “prompt response to customers’needs”, these four indicators are used to evaluate the effects of implementing bestpractices on business processes (Venkatraman, 1994).

Given the aim mentioned above, this research seeks to answer the followingquestions:

RQ1. Which best practices can be employed to face the technical challenge of BPR?

RQ2. What are the best strategic practices for BPR?

To answer the research questions above, first of all, a review of literature on BPR isdone. In the next step, a methodology for identifying best strategic practices isintroduced. Then, applying such a methodology, registration process of students at

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Qazvin Azad University is studied. Finally, the findings of the research are discussedand analyzed and a conclusion is made.

The schematic representation of the stages of this research is shown in Figure 1.

2. Review of literatureSince the advent of reengineering concept, it has been studied from differentperspectives. The followings are examples which are worth mentioning.

Reengineering implementation methodology (Wastell et al., 1999; Davenport andShort, 1990; Kettinger et al., 1997; Wu, 2002), its relationship with other organizationalapproaches (Currie, 1999; Dickinson, 1997; Green andWayhan, 1996; Makridakis, 1996;Ulbrich, 2006), reengineering and IT (Davenport and Short, 1990; Whitman, 1996),quality management and reengineering (Gingele et al., 2002; Macdonald, 1995; Zairiand Sinclair, 1996), implementation experiences, obstacles and results (Belmiroand Rents, 2000; Guimaraes and Bond, 1996; Maull et al., 2003; Ranganathan andDhaliwal, 2001).

But the important point which should be taken into account here is the differencebetween the concepts of process improvement, redesign and reengineering that isillustrated in Figure 2.

Considering Figure 2, it can be concluded that reengineering, compared to redesign,has a broader domain and involves all reconstruction dimensions of the organization’sprocesses from change management to project management. While process redesign is

Figure 1.Research stages

Recognizingbest practices

Categorizingbest strategic

practices

Evaluatingorganization

strategies

Selecting theprocess

under study

Discussionand

conclusion

Testingthe obtained

results

Figure 2.Differences between

process improvement,redesign andreengineering

Low Expectations of result Dramatic

Short/Low Time and cost to improvement

Source: Macdonald (1995)

Long/High

Low Executive involvement Very high

Smal

lIT

-bas

ed n

eed

Impe

rativ

e

Low

Ris

kH

igh

Min

orD

egre

e of

cha

nge

Rad

ical

Processimprovement

Processredesign

Processreengineering


611

seeking for a response to the technical challenge presented in the introduction section,or attempting to somehow make a new process that is preferable to the current processfrom different perspectives, each reengineering process can obviously include one ormore redesign processes (Mansar and Reijers, 2007).

There are several researchers mentioned in the literature who have worked on BPR.Some of them are as follows:

. Al-Mashari and Zairi (1999, 2000) studied the reengineering literature and triedto categorize failure and success factors in their implementation. In thesecond research, they addressed the different definitions of reengineering andresolved the ambiguities around its concepts. Finally, they discussed theintegration between reengineering and total quality management, benchmarkingand change management and presented a conceptual approach toward thecritical role of IT in reengineering.

. Paper, Rodger and Pendharkar (2001) collected organizations’ experiences inreengineering process in the US states and after data analyzing, published themin the form of ten lessons to help those who want to successfully implementreengineering.

. In their study, Ranganathan and Dhaliwal (2001) presented the results ofbusiness process reengineering implementation in Singapore’s companies andidentified the main problems of implementation as the lack of financial andhuman resources, IT internal skill and capacity and a hero to promote the plans.

. Maull et al. (2003) investigated 33 public and private organizations in Englandand analyzed the relationship between different sections and dimensions of areengineering plan and also their relationship with the maturity in implementingthe business process reengineering.

. Hughes et al. (2006), Harders et al.(2006) and Greasley (2004) applied andimplemented reengineering and found out considerable results in e-governmentcenters, operation room in hospitals and road accidents dispatching system.

Few studies have specifically dealt with BPR. In 2005, Mansar and Reijers (2005a)studied best current practices for meeting technical challenges of process redesign andanalyzed these practices, based on their experiences, from cost, quality, time, andflexibility perspectives. In another research done by the same researchers, theyevaluated best practices through experts and analyzers’ questionnaires, identifyingand analyzing ten best practices (Mansar and Reijers, 2007). It is noteworthy that instudies mentioned above the relation between the best practices and strategies oforganization as well as the way they are selected to implement processes have beenneglected.

3. Best practicesReviewing the literature came up with 37 best practices, some of which are notsupported by indicators of cost, quality, time and flexibility. Considering theseindicators, only those with the backgrounds of their effects on processes werepresented. Before presenting the best practices, the important areas and sections inprocess redesign should be mentioned. They can be generally categorized into sixgroups (Mansar and Reijers, 2005b):

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(1) Internal and external customers of business processes.

(2) Products or services of processes.

(3) Business processes from two perspectives:. Operation view. How have the business processes been implemented?

(The number of tasks in an occupation, the relation level between tasks andactivities, tasks’ nature, consistency rate, etc.).

. Behavior view. When have the business processes been implemented?(Tasks’ sequence, composition, scheduling, etc.).

(4) Participants in business processes:. Organization structure (elements, roles, users, groups, units, etc.).. Organization population (individuals, representatives that have the

authority over tasks’ execution and relation between tasks).

(5) The information made or used by business processes.

(6) The technology used by processes, and finally the external environment (exceptcustomers) can be referred to. In Figure 3, an illustration of BPR implementationframework has been presented.

Therefore, from among 37 best practices, 29 best practices were selected which areranked in Table II and are defined and evaluated using four indicators of cost, quality,

Figure 3.BPR implementation

framework

External environment

Customers

Products

Organizationstructure andpopulation

Information Technology

Business process

Operation view Behavior view

Source: Mansar and Reijers (2005b)


613

time and flexibility. It is worth mentioning that the study done by Mansar and Reijers,was used to evaluate the best practices (Mansar and Reijers, 2005a, 2005b, 2007).

If an indicator is displayed by2 , it signifies the negative effect, if byA, it shows theneutral effect and if shown byþ , it symbolizes the positive effect on that indicator. Forinstance, the best practice of “control relocation” positively influences quality(improves the quality), negatively impacts on cost (increases the cost) and has a neutraleffect on time and flexibility.

4. Recognizing best strategic practicesIn order to achieve their missions and goals, organizations adopt various strategies.Due to the application of general strategies in most public and private organizations,three strategies of cost leadership, prompt response and differentiation are used forcategorizing the best practices (Hambrick and Fredrickson, 2001; Porter, 1985).Analyzing strategies is done using cost, time, quality and flexibility indicators asshown in Table I.

Considering the nature of strategies, analyzing their content, and adapting them tothe best practices, the best practices aligned with each strategy can be identified(Table II).

Here, using TOPSIS philosophy, the closeness or distance of best practices toorganization strategies are identified and categorized. In this method, in addition toconsidering the distance of one best practice from main ideal model of strategies(Table III), its distance from strategies’ subsidiary ideal point (Table V) is taken intoaccount as well. That is, selected best practice should have the least distance frommain ideal model, and in the next stage, the least distance from subsidiary ideal model.The algorithm of the mentioned method is as follows.

4.1 First stepThe main model of strategies should be developed considering the indicators of cost,quality, time and flexibility that should express main requirements of the strategies(Table III). In fact, the main focus of strategies is to take these indicators into account.In this research, three spectrums of increase, decrease and neutral are used to evaluatethe indicators. For example, according to Tables I and III, key indicators of promptresponse strategy are time and flexibility, so the aim of this strategy is to decrease thetime and increase the flexibility. It is also possible to consider cost and quality asneutral factors.

Table III is an illustration of core selective indicators.

4.2 Second stepDistance of best practices with main ideal model is assessed and the alignment ofindicators is scored þ 1 and the non-alignment of indicators is scored 21 and finally

Cost leadershipstrategy Prompt response strategy Differentiation strategy

Core selectiveindicator

Based on cost Based on capacity, prompt responseand flexibility

Based on productdevelopment skills

Source: Chou and Chang (2007)Table I.Analyzing strategies

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Framew

ork

components

Bestpractice

Definition

Cost

Tim

eQuality

Flexibility

Suppliers

Custom

erControl

relocation

Movingtowardsthecustom

ers’

control

2A

þA

Klein

(Kettinger

etal.,1997)

Contact

reduction

Reducingphysicalcontact

with

custom

ersandthirdparties

2þ

þA

Ham

mer

andCham

py–Buzacott(Berio

and

Vernadat,2001;Guim

araesandBond,1996)

Integration

Mergingwithcustom

ersand

suppliers’businessprocesses

þþ

A2

Kelin-PeppardandRow

land(Kettinger

etal.,

1997;Maull

etal.,2003)

Process

operation

view

Order

types

Determiningthetasksthat

arerelated

inan

order

anddesigningnew

processes

ifnecessary

þþ

22

Ham

mer

andCham

py–RuppandRussell–

PeppardandRow

land–BergandPottjew

ijd

(Guim

araesandBond,1996;Maull

etal.,2003;

BelmiroandRents,2000;Ranganathan

and

Dhaliwal,2001)

Task

elim

ination

Eliminatingunnecessary

tasksfrom

aprocess

(thetaskswithnoadded

value

forcustom

ers)

þþ

2A

PeppardandRow

land–van

der

Aalst

and

van

Hee

(Berio

andVernadat,2001;Maull

etal.,2003;BelmiroandRents,2000;Sarmad

etal.,1998)

Order-based

work

Eliminatingthebatch-processingand

periodicactivitiesfrom

aprocess

2þ

AA

Reijers

andMansar(M

ansarandReijers,

2007)

Triage

Puttingapartof

ageneraltask

intw

oor

moresubstitute

duties

ormerging

twoor

moresubstitute

duties

inone

general

task

þþ

þ2

(Kettinger

etal.,1997;BelmiroandRents,

2000;Sarmad

etal.,1998;Davis

etal.,2006)

Task

composition

Synthesizingsm

alltasksin

composite

tasksandbreakingdow

nbig

tasks

into

smallpractical

ones

þþ

þ2

Ham

mer

andCham

py–Reijers

andGoverde

–van

der

etal.(Guim

araesandBond,1996;

Sarmad

etal.,1998;PoyssickandHannaford,

1996)

(con

tinued)

Table II.A list of best practices


615

Framew

ork

components

Bestpractice

Definition

Cost

Tim

eQuality

Flexibility

Suppliers

Process

behavior

view

Resequencing

Taskrelocation

totheproper

areas

þþ

AA

Klein

(Kettinger

etal.,1997)

Knock-out

Recognizingtheknock-outsections

andmaintainingthem

þ2

AA

van

der

Aalst

(SeidmannandSundararajan,

1997)

Parallelism

Consideringwhether

taskscanbe

donein

aprocess

inparallel

2þ

AA

van

der

Aalst

(Berio

andVernadat,2001;

BelmiroandRents,2000;Ranganathan

and

Dhaliwal,2001;SeidmannandSundararajan,

1997)

Exception

Businessprocess

designingfortypical

ordersandseparatingtheexception

ordersfrom

thenormal

flow

Aþ

þ2

PoyssickandHannaford–Ham

mer

and

Cham

py(Guim

araesandBond,1996;Peppard

andRow

land,1995)

Organization

structure

Order

assignment

Lettingtheem

ployeesdothestages

ofsingleordersthem

selves

ifthey

have

therequired

ability

A2

þ2

RuppandRussell-van

der

Aalstandvan

Hee-

Ham

mer

andCham

py–Reijers

andGoverde

(Guim

araesandBond,1996;Ranganathan

andDhaliwal,2001;Sarmad

etal.,1998;

PoyssickandHannaford,1996)

Flexible

assignment

Resourceassignmentin

away

that

maxim

izes

theflexibilityforthenear

future

Aþ

þA

van

der

Aalst

andvan

Hee

(Sarmad

etal.,

1998)

Centralization

Dispersingtheresources

ifthey

are

geographically

centralized.

2þ

Aþ

van

der

Aalst

andvan

Hee

(Sarmad

etal.,

1998)

Split

responsibilities

Avoidingsubmittingthetasksto

the

individualsof

other

units

AA

þ2

RuppandRussell–BergandPottjew

ijd

(BelmiroandRents,2000;Ranganathan

and

Dhaliwal,2001)

(con

tinued)

Table II.

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Framew

ork

components

Bestpractice

Definition

Cost

Tim

eQuality

Flexibility

Suppliers

Custom

erteam

sEmployingteam

sexceptdepartm

ental

workersto

completely

handlespecial

orders

A2

þ2

Ham

mer

andCham

py–Peppardand

Row

land-BergandPottjew

ijd(Guim

araes

andBond,1996;Maull

etal.,2003;Belmiro

andRents,2000)

Numerical

involvem

ent

orparticipation

Minim

izingthenumber

ofunits,

groupsandindividualsinvolved

ina

businessprocess

2A

þ2

RuppandRussell–BergandPottjew

ijd–

Ham

mer

andCham

py(Guim

araesandBond,

1996;BelmiroandRents,2000;Ranganathan

andDhaliwal,2001)

Casemanager

Employingaresponsiblepersonfor

handlinganyorder

(thispersonis

process

manager)

2A

þA

van

der

Aalst

andvan

Hee

–Ham

mer

and

Cham

py–Buzacott(Berio

andVernadat,

2001;Guim

araesandBond,1996;Sarmad

etal.,1998)

Organization

population

Extra

resources

Increasingtheresources,ifthe

capacityisnot

enough

2þ

Aþ

BergandPottjew

ijd–van

Hee

etal.(Belmiro

andRents,2000;Tinnila,1995)

Specialization

generalization

Providingmanygeneral

and

professional

resources

22

þ2

RuppandRussellSeidmann&

Sundararajan

(Ranganathan

andDhaliwal,2001;Reijers

andGoverde,1998)

Empow

erEntrustingmostdecision-m

akingsto

employeesandreducingthemiddle

managem

ent

þþ

2A

RuppandRussellHam

mer

andCham

py

SeidmannandSundararajan

(Guim

araesand

Bond,1996;Ranganathan

andDhaliwal,2001;

PeppardandRow

land,1995;Reijers

and

Goverde,1998)

(con

tinued)

Table II.


617

Framew

ork

components

Bestpractice

Definition

Cost

Tim

eQuality

Flexibility

Suppliers

Inform

ation

Control

addition

Controllingthecompleteness(entirety)

andaccuracy

ofinputsandcontrolling

theoutputs

beforedistributingto

custom

ers

þ2

þA

PoyssickandHannafordHam

mer

and

Cham

pyBuzacott(Berio

andVernadat,2001;

Guim

araesandBond,1996;Peppardand

Row

land,1995)

Buffering

Insteadof

receivinginform

ationfrom

anexternal

resource,makeitsafe

by

up-dating

2þ

AA

Reijers

andMansar(M

ansarandReijers,

2007)

Technology

Task

automation

Automatingthetaskswillincrease

the

speedof

handlingtheorderswith

lower

cost

andbetterresult

2þ

þA

Ham

mer

andCham

py–Peppardand

Row

land-BergandPottjew

ijd(Guim

araes

andBond,1996;Maull

etal.,2003;Belmiro

andRents,2000)

Integral

technology

Effortsto

omitphysicalconstraintson

aprocess

byapplyingnew

technologies

2þ

AA

PeppardandRow

land-BergandPottjew

ijd–

van

der

Aalstandvan

Hee

(Maull

etal.,2003;

BelmiroandRents,2000;Sarmad

etal.,1998)

External

environment

Trusted

party

Insteadof

makingdecisionsbased

onyourow

ninform

ation,use

theresults

obtained

bycreditablesections

þþ

22

Reijers

andMansar(M

ansarandReijers,

2007)

Outsourcing

Outsourcingapartof

orthewholeof

abusinessprocess

þþ

22

Ham

mer

andCham

py(Kettinger,1997;

Guim

araesandBond,1996;Peppardand

Row

land,1995)

Interfacing

standardized

relationswithcustom

ers

andpartners

þþ

þA

PoyssickandHannaford(Guim

araesand

Bond,1996;PeppardandRow

land,1995)

Notes:þ

,Positiveeffect;A,neutral

effect;2,negativeeffect

Table II.

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scores are added up. Then, positive scores are ranked from high to low. In the nextstep, best practices are categorized. Table IV indicates the alignment rate between bestindicators and strategies using core indicators.

4.3 Third stepMaking the ideal subsidiary model of strategies using indicators mentioned earliershows the ideal situation after satisfying the main wants of strategies. For example,after meeting its needs of decreasing production time and increasing the flexibility inorganization system, the prompt response strategy is desired to have the best qualityand least cost. Table V indicates the subsidiary selective indicators.

4.4 Fourth stepIn this step, the alignment of best practices with subsidiary ideal model is assessedand similar measures as in the second step are taken. Table VI demonstrates thealignment rate again between the six best practices and strategies using subsidiaryindicators.

Best practice

StrategyContact

reduction Exception Outsourcing

Taskelimination

centralizationKnock-out

Cost leadership –1 –1

Prompt response –1

Differentiation –1

+1

+1 +2

+1

+1 +1

+2 +2

Table IV.Alignment rate between

best practices andstrategies using coreindicators in six bestpractices as examples

IndicatorsStrategies Cost Time Quality Flexibility

Cost leadership # – – –Prompt response – # – "Differentiation – # " –

Notes: " , increase; # , decrease; – , neutralTable III.

Core selective indicators

IndicatorsStrategy Cost Time Quality Flexibility

Cost leadership – # " "Prompt response # – " –Differentiation # – – "

Table V.Subsidiary selective

indicators


619

4.5 Fifth stepLast but not the least, given the results of the second step, best practices with positivescores are ranked from high to low and the results of the third step (the biggestpositive number of subsidiary score) is used to prioritize the best practices when thescores are equal.

Considering above evaluations, best practices’ prioritization is as follows:. Cost leadership: tasks elimination ! outsourcing ! knock-out.. Prompt response: centralization ! tasks elimination.. Differentiation: contact reduction ! exception ! centralization.

Using the above algorithm, best strategic practices are categorized into three categoriesand then into three priorities based on the alignment rate in Figure 4.

5. Case studyUsing obtained results, the registration process at the Azad University of Qazvin isevaluated according to the stages indicated in Figure 5. It is noteworthy that across-functional team was formed and the registration process, based on evaluationdone, was identified as one of the most critical processes; therefore, it was chosen to beredesigned.

5.1 Data collection methodAs mentioned in previous stages, library study was used to collect the best practices; tomodel and to recognize the process, the techniques of observation and interview witheducation administrators and staff of the university were used.

5.2 Data collection toolsThe tool utilized in this research is System Flowchart that is used due to its simplicityin indicating the process. Figure 5 illustrates process redesign methodology.

5.3 Organization strategySurveys showed that the main strategy of the Azad University of Qazvin isdifferentiation.

5.4 Collecting and categorizing best strategic practicesConsidering the Section 3 of this research, 29 best practices were evaluated. Thesepractices had been collected from studies and were related to the general strategies ofthe organization. Finally, 12 best practices were selected for each strategy.

Best practice

StrategyContactreduction Exception Outsourcing

Taskelimination Centralization Knock-out

Cost leadership þ1 þ1 21 – þ2 21Prompt response – þ1 – – 21 þ1Differentiation 21 21 – þ1 – þ1

Table VI.Alignment rate betweenbest practices andstrategies usingsubsidiary indicators

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5.5 Current situation recognitionThe registration process at the Azad University of Qazvin is evaluated in Figure 6 andall its stages are defined. In brief, the main problems of the registration process are asfollows:

. The registration process takes a long time, so that non-local students waste atleast a workday on it.

. The registration fee must be paid at some places located at the university. Thus,it causes long lines and takes a long time to pay the fee.

Figure 4.Best strategic practices

Organization strategies

Differentiation Prompt response Cost leadership

1- Interfacing

2- Flexible assignment

3- Task composition

4- Triage

Firs

t pri

ority

1- Centralization

2- Outsourcing

3- Interfacing

1- Interfacing

2- Re-composition

3- Triage

4- Task composition

Seco

nd p

rior

ity

5- Task automation

6- Exception

7- Contact reduction

4- Re-composition

5- Flexible assignment

6- Contact reduction

7- Task elimination

8- Empower

9- Task automation

5- Empower

6- Integration

7- Control addition

8- Task elimination

Thi

rd p

rior

ity

8- Re-composition

9- Extra resources

10- Integration

11- Case manager

12- Control relocation

10- Integral technology

11- Parallelism

12- Order-based work

9- Order types

10- Trusted party

11- Outsourcing

12- Knock-out


621

. The students are exhausted by walking the long distances and locations atbetween different parts of university.

. The costs of the university go up because the university has to prepare specialplaces for registration and to pay a salary increment to the personnel.

. The possibility of committing errors in the selection system of credit courses isheightened because they are selected by operators.

5.6 Selecting best strategic practicesConsidering the problems of current process and also the university strategy, the beststrategic practices for process redesign are shown in Figure 7.

Therefore, after expert evaluations of each problem, following decisions were made:. Since the registration process is time-consuming and is done during the vacation

between two terms, there should be a decrease in students’ visit to the universityin person (contact reduction).

. For students’ convenience, the number of banks should be increased so that theycould pay the fee in desired regions (external resources, and centralization).

. Course selection by operators is one of the main causes of errors, thus, studentsshould be allowed to choose their courses by themselves (control relocation).

Figure 5.Process redesignmethodology

WFM + B.P 1 WFM + B.P 2

WFM + B.P n

Identifying organization strategies

Collecting and categorizing best strategicpractices

Current situation recognition using workflow model (WFM)

Selecting best strategic practices

Business process redesign model

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Generally, other best practices that could help the registration process are: (taskautomation, exception and task composition).

Therefore, process redesign work team decided to design a web site (a web-basedinformation system) through which the students could do the entire registrationprocess. So, the contact with the university and the registration period were reduced.Before redesigning the process, students usually needed to take 3-4 hours to completetheir registration process (if they were locals), but when the process was redesigned,

Figure 7.The flowchart

of enrollment processat university afterbeing redesigned

Uni

vers

ityw

ebsi

teC

ount

ry's

bank

sE

duca

tion

Going to the bankand getting

deposit slip thebank receipt

Visiting thewebsite and

receivinginformation about

fixed fee

Payingthe fixed

fee

Registeringbank draft

and financialconfirmation

Completingcourse

selectionMonitoring theselected courses

Courseselection

conformation

Gettinginformation

about thevariable fee

Going to thebank and gettingdeposit slip the

bank receipt

Payingthe

variablefee

Draftregistration

Taking theprintout of

course selection

Figure 6.The flowchart

of registration processat the university

before redesigning

Publ

icat

ions

Com

pute

rB

ank

of

univ

ersi

tyFi

nanc

ial

issu

esE

duca

tion

Receivingthe presented

lessons


fixed tuition fee

Going andgetting

deposit slipbank receipt

Payingthe fixed

tuition fee

Going andgiving the

deposit paiddraft

Financialregistration

andconfirmation

Filing in theform ofcourse

selection

Beingconfirmed bythe head ofdepartment

Have thelessons beenconfirmed?

Registeringthe selected

courses

Taking theprintout ofselecting

thecourses

Has courseselection been

completedcorrectly and successfully?

Going andgetting bank

slips

Paying thevariable fee

Going andgiving the

deposit slips

Financialregistration

andconfirmation


courseselection

Enteringstudentnumber


623

the registration time was reduced to less than 1 hour. Meanwhile, the studentsthemselves select the courses, which put them in control. Furthermore, in cooperationwith one of the national banks, students can now pay their tuition fee anytime,everywhere and with the least wasted time, when compared with that of paying fee atthe university (Figure 7).

6. ConclusionIn this research, a methodologywas proposed to recognize the best strategic practices inBPR. This methodology uses TOPSIS philosophy in recognizing the alignment ofpracticeswith the strategy. The indicators of cost, time, quality and flexibilitywere usedas the criteria to select best strategic practice. Also, using the proposedmethodology, thebest strategic practices for three strategies of cost leadership, prompt response anddifferentiation were identified from among 29 best practices. The proposed method wastested in a case study of the registration process at a university. It was indicated that theprocess redesign fulfill organization strategies through recognizing and implementingthe best strategic practices. In this paper, to identify the effects of implementing the bestpractices on organization, four indicators with three spectrums were used, but otherindicators such as trustworthiness complexity, etc. with a wide range of spectrums canbe employed to analyze the method. As suggestions for further research, the degree ofchanges which can be caused by each and every of the best practices in the organization,measuring these the degree of changes and the organization processes’ capability of canbe taken into account.

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Corresponding authorPayam Hanafizadeh can be contacted at: [email protected]

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selecting the best strategic practices for business process redesign

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