Business modeling based on logistics to support business process re-engineering

Current literature on business process re-engineering (BPR) lacks detailed guidance and support for the actual execution of re-engineering. Many publications illustrate the situation before and after BPR; but do not discuss the path that has been travelled to reach the final situation. We think that it is possible to provide tools to support practitioners executing BPR projects. In our research we focus on so-called information production processes: the primary processes of organisations delivering products consisting of information. In our search for tools to support BPR in this area, we used logistics to give shape to a business modelling language that supports BPR. In this article we introducé this modelling language and discuss its suitability to support BPR. THE NEED FOR PROCESS KNOWLEDGE In every business process re-engineering (BPR) project, processes have to be understood to enable the participants to design a new process. What the process does, what performance it has and which factors influence the performance are among the aspects to be known. For example, Guha, Kettinger and Teng (1993) state that the existing process should be clearly understood. According to them, the documentation concerning the process should cover a description of the process from start to finish, the components of the process and the performance of the process. On the other hand, Hammer & Champy (1993) argue that a very detailed analysis of a process is not needed because the goal of the re-engineering effort is not to improve the existing process but to design a "totally new and superior design". We agree that it may not be necessary to know all details of a process, the question is which , aspects should be known and which not? We doubt whether the global guidelines for re' engineering as given in the various BPR approaches, suffice to guarantee success, something O which the term "engineering" more or less implies. It looks as if BPR is still more an art requiring artists to succeed than structured knowledge that can be exploited by professionals (c.f. Short, 1993). In the literature on BPR, examples of successful BPR implementations are given, but the literature restricts itself to descriptions of the "situation before" and the "situation after", giving very little information on the redesign process itself. We are looking for ways to support the BPR practitioner with bis job. Our research focuses on the redesign of primary processes that manufacture products consisting of information. Examples of such products are financial services and government services. We use the term information production for this kind of production to distinguish it from material production, like car manufacturing and electronic appliances production. ^ fin information production, as in material production (c.f. Manager Magazin, 1993), the goal v for many BPR projects is to shotten the lead time of the processes. Managers ask themselves why the lead times of jobs are tenfold of the times actually worked on the jobs. In one of our studies with 7 financial institutions, we learned that the mean lead time of making a mortgage offer was about 5 days while the mean time worked on the offers was about half an hour. Other studies provide about the same figures (e.g. Wilder, 1991; King, 1991). , Re-engineering of information production processes to attain shorter lead times asks for knowledge about the factors that influence these times. One should understand the factors playing in a role in the determination of the lead time, and how different designs lead to different production lead times. We think the re-engineering team should have this knowledge at hand to be able to effectively make a design for a faster process. Moreover, currently used methodologies for analysis and design of information production processes stem from the information systems area, and do not have the correct focus for BPR (Gerrits, 1993). \ 1 Hammer & Champy (1993) give an indication of the qualities needed: "it [redesign] requires imagination, inductive thinking, and a touch of craziness".