Re-engineering basics: One of three, new, special tools for management, quality and all other professionals

This is probably one of the ‘hottest’ topics for present management. Re-engineering is a major effort to modify how business—manufacturing and service and government—is done so that it is done better, faster, and at lower cost. Some organizations have simplistic viewpoints or limited viewpoints for the potential of re-engineering. The author will provide re-engineering basics, tools and a workable methodology! Re-engineering achieves breakthrough business results through the rapid and radical redesign of critical core processes and the systems, policies, and organizational structures that support them. Programs like re-engineering are necessary because the business world is changing too fast for more traditional incremental improvement techniques to keep up. Breakthrough suggests that the results are completely beyond the realm of possibility now. Re-engineering is different from other improvement programs, such as reorganization, downsizing, or total quality management (TQM): while re-engineering addresses and improves certain critical core work processes, TQM fixes all work processes across the board; while re-engineering seeks single breakthrough improvements, quality programs such as TQM makes continuous incremental improvements; while re-engineering fixes the work, reorganization fixes the organization; while re-engineering fixes the work, downsizing fixes the firm's size.Re-engineering is not downsizing! Re-engineering differs from other improvement programs in several essential ways: re-engineering is not just ‘another’ quality improvement program; while quality programs seek incremental adjustments spread across the entire enterprise, re-engineering seeks breakthrough improvements based on a few ‘high-value’ processes through a radical redesign of those processes; in re-engineering, the employees become even more indispensable; re-engineering is not just restructuring. Restructing changes the way the firm is organized to do work. Re-engineering changes the organization of work.