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1. INTRODUCTION
Interest in the Business Process Reengineering (BPR) concept is quite recent, emerging in the work of writers such as Davenport and Short (1990), Hammer (1990), Hammer and Champy (1993), and Harrington (1991). The concept is currently very topical, however, and is ubiquitous in recent organisational, management and information technology literature. The extent of the widespread popular interest in the BPR concept can be gauged from the fact that Hammer and Champy's recent book on BPR featured at the top of the US best-seller lists. This popularity is also reflected in the fact that many organisations claim to be undertaking BPR projects and many software vendors are offering products to support BPR. However, several studies have recently appeared in the literature which have critically examined the BPR phenomenon (e.g. Earl, 1994; Coulson-Thomas, 1994; Strassman, 1993). The progression of a concept from theory to sustained practice is dependent on the development of its theoretical base, and the introduction of methodological approaches that are capable of being used by practitioners. This paper reports on a study in which a specific methodology for BPR was developed and applied in one organisation.
2. BPR: BASIC PRINCIPLES AND CONCEPTS
While BPR is usually portrayed as a new concept, a number of the principles and concepts underpinning BPR have their antecedents in other disciplines. For example, Strassman (1993) identifies the contribution of the industrial engineering discipline in which methods such as process analysis, activity costing and value-added measurement have been around for about 50 years. Earl (1994) also discusses the contribution of a number of fields, including the operations management domain (e.g. Juran, 1964), sociotechnical systems thinking (Leavitt, 1964) and systems analysis. However, BPR is now coming to the fore in a different business environment. Certainly, the technological infrastructure is now very different, offering capabilities that were not feasible in the past. Also, BPR attempts to reorient the axis of the organisation away from the traditional vertical management control of employee up to management, and towards a horizontal value orientation of vendor to customer (Orr, 1993). The latter orientation is one where real value may be added for the enterprise.
Definitions of the term business process vary, but most researchers suggest that it comprises a number of interrelated activities...