Process Improvement

Once business processes are properly modeled, they can be analyzed for improvement. Business process improvement is an important goal for managers, and it is often labeled Business Process Reengineering (BPR). BPR involves the redesign of business processes to improve how work is done, which of course means that BPR requires that business process modeling be done well first. It is important to realize that BPR often involves changing the way tasks are performed instead of just automating the tasks. It requires rethinking about what is done and how it is done (and even whether it should be done!). In one of their books on BPR, Michael Hammer and James Champy (2003) suggest that BPR involves the fundamental rethinking (really asking why an organization performs tasks in a certain way) and radical redesign of business processes (meaning that there is re-invention or re-creation, not just simple minor changes done) in order to obtain dramatic impr....