Answers:
Michael Hammer defines
re-engineering as ‘the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of Business
process to achieve dramatic improvements in the critical contemporary measures
of performance such as cost, quality, service and speed’.
The approach
to re-engineering aims at customer focus. It requires one to take a different
view of the business-the view based on the process and not on the tasks or
functions. It requires organisation restructuring and redesigning based on the
process, which terminates at the customer door contributing to the value
desired by the customer.
The definition
of re-engineering is loaded with a number of important concepts and its
understanding is necessary for successful re-engineering of business. The first
and the foremost is fundamental rethinking. The fundamental rethinking calls
for questioning everything that is being followed practiced and found
acceptable for centuries. It rejects old legacies and ‘proven’ practices. For
example, one can question the necessity of an invoice for billing and recovery
of money. Is there any other way whereby the sales transaction can be
registered and money recovered without raising the invoice document? It
requires questioning on the basic principles of management and administration
which are used for decades. The old principles like when it is a money matter
it is for finance and accounts to handle, when it is a matter of quality it is
the responsibility of the quality assurance department, etc. are to be
rejected. The fundamental rethinking calls for starting all over again
rejecting the past. It requires a vision, an innovation and an imagination.