Modern Applied Science www.ccsenet.org/mas
96
BPR Application
Guoli Yin
Technical Development Center, SAIC GM Wuling Automobile Co., Ltd, No.18, Hexi road, 545007, China
Tel: 86-0772-375-1096 E-mail: yin.guoli@hotmail.com or guoli.yin@sgmw.com.cn
Abstract
To pursue more success or to be outstanding, many companies apply BPR to breakthrough big issues, to increase
efficiency, quality and reduce cost. This paper first introduce what is BPR, the essential of BPR and the benefits
of BPR, then, tell us how to implement BPR through a case study. The purpose of his paper is to help readers to
have a good understanding of BPR, so as to be able to apply BPR to improve performance of their company.
Keywords: BPR, Process, 3X3 principle, Benefit, BPR implement
1. Introduction
Nowadays the requirements of customers vary from person to person. Failure to meet the customer’s requirement
is likely to drive them into the arms of a competitor. In addition, global competition drives companies to pursue
the world’s best. On the other hand market conditions change quickly, companies have to move fast to adapt.
Hammer and Champy (1993) stated that these three factors force companies to strive for a breakthrough to
increase efficiency, quality, reduce cost, to focus on strategy, technology or automation in short time. Business
Process Reengineering (BPR) is applied to obtain the above objectives (Chan and Peel, 1998, p45-46). In this
article, there is a critical appraisal of BPR, and benefit forthcoming from its implementation. Then, a BPR case
study focusing on the process will be undertaken, the purpose of which is to tell how to carry out BPR.
2. The concept of BPR
2.1 The definition of BPR
Researchers and practitioners have defined BPR in different ways with different emphases. Hammer and
Champy (1993) defined BPR as “the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to
achieve dramatic improvements in critical, contemporary measures of performance, such as cost, quality, service
and speed.” Alter (1990) defined BPR as “a methodical process that uses information technology to radically
overhaul business process and thereby attain major business goals”. Lowenthal (1994) defined BPR as “the
fundamental rethinking and redesign of operating process and organizational structure, focuses on the
organization’s core competencies, to achieve dramatic improvements in organizational performance” (Mashari,
M,A and Zairi, M, 2000,p11). Sethi and King (1998) defined BPR as “a redesign and reorganization of business
activities that results from questioning the status quo. It seeks to fulfill specific objectives and can lead to
breakthrough improvement. It is often associated with significant cultural and technological changes”.
2.2 Critical appraisal the concept of BPR
No matter how BPR is defined, its main goal is to redesign business process. Toward this end, IT can be used as
an enabler to achieve the goals. Mostly, if the original organization is unfit for the new process, then this would
be a main block implementing the new process. So BPR always includes organizational change (Al-Mashari and
Zairi, 2000). There are five elements of the above definitions that need to be stressed:
• a focus on business process
• a questioning of the status quo
• specific objectives
• breakthrough achievement
• significant cultural change (Sethi and King,1998)
Some companies may still confuse BPR with TQM, organizational change and automation due to their similar
tools and outcomes. Actually, BPR differs from TQM in two important respects. Firstly, TQM focuses on
continuous incremental performance improvement, while BPR focuses on dramatic discontinuous improvement
– breaking away from the outdated rules and fundamental assumptions that underlie operations (Bond and
Guimaraes, 1996. Choi and Chan, 1997). Secondly, the primary purpose of BPR is to increase effectiveness of
accomplishment of the company’s management, administrative and operational tasks, while the primary purpose
of TQM is to improve the quality (Choi and Chan, 1997). Regarding organizational change, restructuring or