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Best practices in business process redesign: an overview and

qualitative evaluation of successful redesign heuristics
H.A. Reijersa;∗ , S. Liman Mansarb
a Department of Information and Technology, Faculty of Technology and Management, Eindhoven University of Technology
(PAV D14,) P.O. Box 513, Eindhoven, 5600 MB, Netherlands
b Department of Computing, Communications Technology and Mathematics, London Metropolitan University, 2-16 Eden Grove,
London N7 8EA, UK
Received 25 April 2002; accepted 23 April 2004
Abstract
To implement business process redesign several best practices can be distinguished. This paper gives an overview of
heuristic rules that can support practitioners to develop a business process design that is a radical improvement of a current
design. The emphasis is on the mechanics of the process, rather than on behavioral or change management aspects. The various
best practices are derived from a wide literature survey and supplemented with experiences of the authors. To evaluate the
impact of each best practice along the dimensions of cost, 1exibility, time and quality, a conceptual framework is presented
that synthesizes views from areas such as information systems development, enterprise modeling and work1ow management.
The best practices are thought to have a wide applicability across various industries and business processes. They can be
used as a “check list” for process redesign under the umbrella of diverse management approaches such as Total Cycle Time
compression, the Lean Enterprise and Constraints Management.
? 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Business process redesign; Operations management; MIS; Heuristics
1. Introduction Many methodologies, techniques, and tools have been

proposed that face one or more of the mentioned challenges
A business process redesign (BPR) initiative is commonly in a more or less integrated approach (for an overview see
seen as a twofold challenge (e.g. [1–3]): [5]). Prescriptive literature in the Deld is sometimes adver-
tised as “a step-by-step guide to business transformation”
• a technical challenge, which is due to the di=culty of (e.g. [1]) suggesting a complete treatment of the organiza-
developing a process design that is a radical improvement tional and technical issues involved with BPR. However,
of the current design, work like this seems to be primarily aimed at impressing a
• and a socio-cultural challenge, resulting from the severe business audience. At best it gives some directions to man-
organizational e>ects on the involved people, which may age organizational risk, but commonly lacks actual tech-
lead them to react against those changes. nical direction to (re)design a business process. Even the
classic work of Hammer and Champy [6] devotes only 14
Apart from these challenges, project management of a BPR out of a total of over 250 pages to this issue, of which
initiative itself is also often named as a separate BPR chal- 11 pages are used for the description of a case. Gerrits [7]
lenge (e.g. [4]). mentions: “In the literature on BPR, examples of successful
BPR implementations are given. Unfortunately, the litera-
∗ Tel.: +31-40-247-2290; fax: +31-40-243-2612. ture restricts itself to descriptions of the ’situation before’
E-mail address: jreijers@win.tue.nl (H.A. Reijers). and the ’situation after’, giving very little information on the
0305-0483/$ - see front matter ? 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.omega.2004.04.012
284 H.A. Reijers, S. Liman Mansar / Omega 33 (2005) 283 – 306
redesign process itself”. According to Motwani et al. [8], in reengineering project, such as Total Cycle Time Compres-
the meanwhile, research in BPR progressed slightly to also sion [12,13], the Lean Enterprise approach [14] and Con-
include the development of conceptual models for assessing straints Management [15,16]. Although a discussion of these
and executing BPR. However, the main criticism to these various approaches is outside the scope of this paper, it is
models/steps is that there has been little e>ort to use the ex- important to point out here that the best practices we discuss
isting theory to develop a comprehensive integrated model should be seen as being on a lower, more operational level
on BPR. Valiris and Glykas [9] also recognize as limitations than these encompassing approaches. Many of the best prac-
of existing BPR methodologies that “there is a lack of a sys- tices we mention do have a wide application across these
tematic approach that can lead a process redesigner through approaches. For example, consider the case of the reengi-
a series of steps for the achievement of process redesign”. neering of a manufacturing company as in [17]. This BPR
As Sharp and McDermott [10] commented more recently: project was driven by a Total Cycle Time Compression ap-
“How to get from the as-is to the to-be [in a BPR project] proach in which several best practices we list in this paper
isn’t explained, so we conclude that during the break, were applied, such as empowerment and the introduction
the famous ATAMO procedure is invoked—And Then, of process-wide technology. Another example is the task
A Miracle occurs”. elimination best practice, which originated from the same
In our research we are interested in developing a method- experiences within the Toyota company that shaped “lean
ology for BPR implementation based not only in detailing thinking” as an overall management philosophy [18].
steps for BPR but also on guiding and supporting the BPR In summary, we believe that adopting an overall manage-
execution by means of techniques and best practices. ment vision on BPR is a necessary condition for making the
In this context our Drst concern is to adopt (or deDne) an application of BPR best practices e>ective and to give di-
existing framework for BPR. We will not try to present yet rection to a BPR e>ort. And in return, the implementation
another integrated BPR methodology, the framework should of such a BPR vision can be helped by considering the best
only allow the user of the BPR methodology to recognize the practices we present in the rest of this paper.
important topics and their relationships. The second concern The structure of the paper is now as follows. First we
is to identify among the literature and the successful execu- will present a framework for BPR implementation in Sec-
tion of current BPR implementations the best practices that tion 2. It will serve as a guidance to which topics should be
may/should be used for each topic of the framework. Brand considered when implementing BPR. Before we discuss the
and Van der Kolk’s [11] evaluation framework will be used various best practices, we will describe a model in Section
to assess the (supposed) e>ects of a best practice on cost, 3 that serves as a frame of reference for their assessment.
quality, time and 1exibility. Our Dnal concern is to guide Next we will describe the BPR best practices in Section 4.
the users to when and in which order to apply these best For each best practice, we will present its general formula-
practices. This latter point also includes guidance towards tion, its potential e>ects and possible drawbacks. We will
the limits of these best practices and their validity domain. also indicate similarities in best practices, provide references
This involves an extensive study of all the best practices to their origin and—if available—to known quantitative or
identiDed. analytic support. A summary of all contributions to the best
In this paper, we will only focus on the Drst and second practices will be analyzed in Table 1. The paper ends with
concern of our research, namely: our conclusions and future research.
• deDning a framework for BPR implementation and

• identifying the best practices in BPR implementation.
2. A business process redesign framework
The best practices which are identiDed should be seen as
independent rules of thumb, each of which can be of value In order to help the user in choosing the correct best
to support practitioners in facing the technical challenge of practice when dealing with the implementation of BPR, it
a BPR project. Merely applying these rules, however, is is important to deDne clearly a framework for it. The idea
unlikely to lead to sustained success. behind a framework is to help practitioners by identifying
In the Drst place, the BPR practices we will discuss focus the topics that should be considered and how these topics
on the mechanics of the process and do not cover how the are related [19]. In this perspective, the framework should
behavior of people working within the process can be in1u- identify clearly all views one should consider whenever ap-
enced. Anybody who conducted a BPR project realizes that plying a BPR implementation project. So, a framework is
the latter is a crucial factor in making a process transforma- not a model of a business process. It is rather an explicit set
tion successful. of ideas that helps in thinking about the business process in
Secondly, the application of these various best practices the context of reengineering.
must be embedded within an overall vision on BPR that is We will now explore and discuss several frameworks and
adopted for the project. Several well-known management business process analysis models that are available in the
philosophies exist that can guide the overall course of a literature.
Table 1
A survey of best practices in business process redesign
Framework Rule Impact Limits Referred Technique Tool Application
elements name on BP to by used availability examples
Customers Control Quality, Unknown Klein [35] Guideline None PaciDc Bell
relocation cost
Contact Time, Unknown Hammer and Guideline None Ford’s accounts payable departments reduced num-
reduction quality, Champy [6] ber of clerk’s from 500 to 125 (from three points
cost of contact to two)
Buzacott [36] Conditions on Queuing None
when to re- model
duce contact
H.A. Reijers, S. Liman Mansar / Omega 33 (2005) 283 – 306

or not
Integration Time, Unknown Klein [35] Guideline None None

1exibility,
cost
Peppard and Guideline None Individual (customers carry trays and clear away
Rowland [32] in fast foods) or a customer organization (Baxter
health-care integrated their organization with their
customer by just-in-time provision of a hospital
equipment)
Products None None None None None None None

Operation Order Time, None Hammer and Guideline None IBM credit, three versions of the credit insurance
view types quality, Champy [6] process: performed by computer, by a deal struc-
cost, turer, with support of specialist advisers
1exibility
Rupp and Guideline None None
Russell [39]
Peppard and Guideline + None None
Rowland [32] notion of run-
ners, repeaters
and strangers
to distinguish
process vari-
ants
Berg and Guideline None Furniture factory distinguishes separate supporting
Pottjewijd [38] chair-making process
Task elim- Time, Unknown Peppard and Guidelines None Transportation, movement and motion (a high-tech
ination 1exibility, Rowland [32] company found out that its semi-conductors traveled
cost. 150 000 miles during their transformation)
Berg and Guideline None Controls through which all orders pass, physical
Pottjewijd [38] transport of information
285
Table 1 (continued)
286
Van der Aalst Guideline + None Monitoring tasks, iterations

and Van Hee examples
[41]
Buzacott [36] Illustration on Queuing Illustration of the quantitative e>ect of eliminating
an example. model iterations on a simple example
Castano et al. Guideline + ARTEMIS Entity-based similarity coe=cient to evaluate the
[40] example + methodology degree of similarities between activities
tool framework
Order-based Time, Unknown Own experi- Guideline None Removal of batch processing and periodic activities

work cost ence when possible
Triage Quality, Too much Klein [35] Guideline None None
time, specialization
cost, may have in-
1exibility verted e>ects
Berg and Guideline None Example of triage in times of peak demand
Pottjewijd [38]
Van der Aalst Guideline None None
and Van Hee
[41]
Zapf and SpeciDc for Simulation Tests two “triage” conDgurations to decide which
Heinzl [42] Call Center one results in better performance results
Organizations.
Dewan et al. An approach Extension of Applicable to administrative processes with rela-
[43] for the integra- PERT/CPM tively stable task structures, such as order fulDll-
tion of tasks. approaches ment by mail order distributors, mortgage process-
Discussion ing, medical billing or conDguration management in
of optimality large scale engineering design projects
of applying
integration
in a process
network on
cycle-time and
cost. Model
limited to
Dxed delays
between tasks
Task com- Time, Too large Hammer and Guideline None An electronic company compressed responsibilities
position quality, tasks may Champy [6] for the various steps or the order fulDllment process
cost, have inverted resulting in tasks combined into one task executed
1exibility results. by a so-called “customer service representative”
Russell [39]
Peppard and Guideline None None
Rowland [32]
Berg and Guideline None Applicability: situations with large number of tasks
Pottjewijd [38] and limited need for adapting information systems
because of composition
Reijers and Guideline None None

Goverde [44]
Van der Aalst Conditions A heuristic None
[45] based on ra-
tios to deDne

when to com-
bine two sub-
sequent tasks
and Van Hee
[41]
Buzacott [36] The desirabil- Queuing None
ity of com- models
bining several
tasks into one,
depends crit-
ically on the
processing
time variabil-
ity and on
the arrival
variability
Seidmann and Guidance on Queuing the- None
Sundararajan the e>ect of ory and ten-
[43] task asym- dency graphs.
metry on the
optimality of
the process
redesign
Behavioral Resequencing Time, Unknown Klein [35] Guideline None Automated kiosks in Disney theme parks
view cost
Parallelism Time, may Unknown Rupp and Guideline None None
cost, Russell [39]
1exibility,
quality
Berg and Guideline None In a stylized business process. The end controls are
Pottjewijd [38] parallelized
287
Table 1 (continued)
288

and Van Hee
[41]
Buzacott [36] Parallel pro- Queuing None
cessing is not models.
necessarily
clearly supe-
rior unless
individual

jobs spend in
the system is
the dominant
criterion
Van der Aalst A set of con- A heuristic. None
[45] ditions under
which putting
two subse-
quent tasks in
parallel have a
positive e>ect
Knock-out Time, Van der Aalst Rules on A heuristic. None
cost [45] how to order
tasks when
knock-out
processes are
considered
Exception Time, Poyssick and Guideline None None
quality, Hannaford
1exibility [46]
Hammer and Guideline None None
Champy [6]
Organization: Order as- Time, Unknown Rupp and Guideline None None
structure signment quality, Russell [44]
1exibility
Hammer and Guideline None Bell Atlantic assigned a case team to establish
Champy [6] high-speed, digital circuits for business customers
Reijers and Guideline None None
Goverde [44]
and Van Hee
[41]
Flexible Queue Van der Aalst Guideline None None
assign- time, and Van Hee
ment quality, [41]
1exibility
Centralization Flexibility, Unknown Van der Aalst Guideline Work1ow None
time, and Van Hee management
cost. [38] systems
Split re- Time, Unknown Rupp and Guideline None None
sponsibili- quality, Russell [39]
ties 1exibility
Berg and Guideline None None
Pottjewijd [38]
Customer Cost, Peppard and Guideline None Microsoft (10 000 employees) still works in teams

teams time, Rowland [32] of no more than 200 people despite information
1exibility, 1owing problems
quality
Hammer and Guideline None Hallmark, integrated teams for the development of
Champy [6] a new line of cards
Pottjewijd [38]
Numerical Time, Unknown Hammer and Imagine what None Who is needed for the handling of an insurance
involve- cost, Champy [6] happens if claim?
ment quality only one per-
son makes
the job and
add additional
resources if
appears neces-
sary
Russell [39]
Pottjewijd [38]
Case Quality Unknown Hammer and Guideline None Duke Power Company (public utility) where case
manager and customer Champy [6] managers present customers with the useful Dction
satisfaction, of an integrated customer service process
cost
and Van Hee
[41]
Buzacott [36] Provides con- Queuing None
ditions for models
which the role
of the case
manager is
289
justiDed
Table 1 (continued)
290
Organization: Extra re- Time, Berg and Increase ca- None None
population sources 1exibility, Pottjewijd [38] pacity if possi-
cost ble, but not if
it only moves
the bottleneck
Van Hee et al. Discussion of Algorithms Example of a telephone operator company
[47] the optimal-
ity of several
strategies to

optimally allo-
cate additional
resources in
a business
process
Specialist Time Unknown Poyssick and Guideline None None
–general- (specialist), Hannaford
ist 1exibility [38]
(generalist)
Pottjewijd [38]
Russell [39]
Seidmann and Guidance on Queuing sys- None
Sundararajan the e>ect of tems and ten-
[25] knowledge in- dency graphs
tensity on the
optimality of
the process
redesign
Empower Time, Hammer and Guideline None IBM credit. Specialist jobs such as credit checker
quality, Champy [6] and pricer were combined into a single position
cost “deal structurer”
Buzacott [36] Provides Formal mod- None
guidelines els
on e=ciency of central-
of centralized/decentralized
ized/decentralized systems
systems
Poyssick and
Hannaford
[46]
Russell [39]
Seidmann and Qualitative None None
Sundararajan discussion
[25] on impact of
control cost
on delegating
work or not
Own experi- Guideline None None
ence
Control Time, Unknown Poyssick and Guideline None None
addition quality, Hannaford
cost [46]

Buzacott [36] Rules on Queuing None
where it is model
best to check.
Hammer and Guideline None Taco Bell eliminated some supervisory layers to give
Champy [6] more responsibility to restaurants managers leading
to a new job category the Market manager
Information Bu>ering Time, Unknown Own experi- Guideline None None
cost ence
Technology Task au- Time, Peppard and Rules of Telephone-based businesses. Nissan uses a rule of
tomation quality, Rowland [32] thumb for thumb of not automating dirty, di=cult or dangerous
1exibility greater success tasks
in automation.
Hammer and Guideline None Taco Bell: the Taco-making machine
Champy [6]
Pottjewijd [38]
Integral Quality Unknown Klein [35] Guideline I&T Loews corporation (chain of movie theatres) intro-
Business cost, duced TeleDlm and Teleticket services
Process time
Technol-
ogy
Hammer and A chapter with I&T Shared databases, expert systems, telecommunica-
Champy [6] examples on tions networks, etc.
the enabling
role of IT
Peppard and Guideline None None
Rowland [32]
Pottjewijd [38]
Van der Aalst Guideline i.e. work1ow Computerization of documents
and Van Hee packages
[41]
291
Interactive videodisk may be as good contact with

Customers
Taco Bell, the K-Minus system (Kitchenless
a potential buyer as any personal contact

Products
The creditworthiness of a customer
Business Process
Participants Information Technology

Application
restaurant)
examples
Fig. 1. The WCA framework of Alter [19].

None
None
None
CIMOSA, a business process-centered method for enter-

prise modeling distinguishes three modeling levels [20]:
Technology
availability
• the requirements deDnition level: to represent the voice

None
None
None
None
None
Tool
of the users, i.e. what is needed as expressed in a detailed

and unambiguous way in user-oriented language;
• the design speciDcation level: to formally deDne one or
more solutions satisfying the set of requirements and to
analyze their properties and to select the “best” one;
Technique
Guideline
Guideline
Guideline
Guideline
Guideline
Guideline
• the implementation description: to state in detail the

used
implementation solution taking into account technical

physical constraints.
experi-
Hammer and
Poyssick and
Poyssick and
Hammer and
It is clear, according to this classiDcation and the nature of

Champy [6]
Champy [6]
BPR, that the business process framework we need is on

Hannaford
Hannaford
Klein [35]
Referred
the design speciDcation level. Alter [19] suggests the use of

to by
Own
ence
[46]
[46]
the so-called work-centered analysis framework (WCA). It

consists of six linked elements, the internal or external cus-
tomers of the business process, the products (or services)
generated by the business process, the steps in the business
process, the participants in the business process, the infor-
mation the business process uses or creates and Dnally the
Limits
technology the business process uses. Fig. 1 shows the links

between these elements.
This framework appears to be relevant for our purpose
because it dissociates the structure of the business process
Quality.
quality,
from the other “components” of a business process: the par-

Cost,
Cost,
Cost,
time.
time
ticipants, the information and the technology. Indeed, as

Impact
on BP
stated by Grant [21] it is a narrow view to only consider pro-

cesses when depicting BPR; other important aspects of insti-
tutions are also organizational structure, people, communi-
Outsourcing
Interfacing
cation and technology. The danger of adopting too narrow a

Trusted
view is that it misdirects developers to focus exclusively on

name
party
Rule
processes while ignoring a variety of other possible reengi-

Table 1 (continued)
neering opportunities that may result from a wider view.

A second argument for the relevance of such a framework
External envi-
for our purpose is the emphasis on technology as a separate

Framework
part of the business process. In their paper, Gunasekaran

elements
ronment
and Nath [22] describe the advantages of integrating IT in

BPR to improve the performance of manufacturing/service
H.A. Reijers, S. Liman Mansar / Omega 33 (2005) 283 – 306 293
companies. They also list suggestions on how technology EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT

could be used to reengineer the business process. Anyway,
the fundamental idea here is that it is advised to keep in Customers
mind what kind of IT is available and in which way it could
help improve the process.
Products
Finally, Alter’s framework is consistent with the
CIMOSA standard enterprise modeling views: CIMOSA
recommends to consider a function view that addresses the
enterprise functionality (i.e. what has to be done) and the Business process
enterprise behavior (i.e. in which order work has to be
done), an information view (i.e. what are the objects to be Operation view
i Behavioural
i l view
processed to be used), a resource view (i.e. who /what does
what) and an organization view (i.e. organization entities
and their relationships, who is responsible of what or whom,
Organisation Information Technology
who has authority on what, people empowerment, etc.). -Structure
Compared to Alter’s framework, it is clear that the di>er- -Population
ence with CIMOSA views is in the “Technology” dimen-
sion, as it is not mentioned in CIMOSA.
Another framework has been presented by Jablonski and
Bussler [23] in the context of work1ow management. Van Fig. 2. Final framework for BPR.
der Aalst and Berens [24] see a work@ow as a speciDc type of
business process: it delivers services or informational prod-
ucts. Jablonski and Bussler provide the MOBILE model for • job details, including the number of tasks in a job, the
work1ows, which is split into two categories of perspectives: relative size of tasks, the nature of tasks and the degree
the factual perspectives and the systemic perspectives. The of customization.
former determine the contents of a work1ow model and the • administrative variables, including the decision rights, the
latter the enactment of work1ow descriptions. We are ob- performance measures and the compensation schemes.
viously interested in the factual perspectives of the MO- • information and technology variables, including the
BILE work1ow model. Essentially Dve perspectives are knowledge intensity, the information symmetry and the
described: information sharing.
• the function perspective: what has to be executed?, The Drst two classes of parameters are sensibly close to the
• the operation perspective: how is a work1ow operation operation and behavior perspectives described by Jablon-
implemented?, ski and Bussler [23]. The third class is related to human
• the behavior perspective: when is a work1ow executed?, resources management and the last class is related to the
• the information perspective: what data are consumed and technology dimension as mentioned in the WCA framework
produced?. of Alter [19]. Seidmann and Sundarajan [25] do not add
• the organization perspective: who has to execute a work- any new view to the business process redesign framework.
1ow or a work1ow application? However, they use and describe detailed parameters that are
worth to be considered in a BPR e>ort.
The operation and the behavior perspectives can be consid- So Dnally, in the context of BPR, the extended framework
ered as a more detailed view of the business process as it of Fig. 2 is derived as a synthesis of the WCA framework
is deDned in Alter’s WCA framework. Moreover, the au- [19], the MOBILE work1ow model [23], the CIMOSA en-
thors distinguish in the organization perspective (compa- terprise modeling views [20] and the process description
rable to “participants”) two parts, the organization struc- classes of Seidmann and Sundarajan [25].
ture (elements: roles, users, groups, departments, etc.) and In this framework, six elements are linked:
the organization population (individuals: agents which can
have tasks assigned for execution and relationships between • the internal or external customers of the business
them), which clariDes the participants dimension. process,
Seidmann and Sundarajan [25] have worked on the e>ects • the products (or services) generated by the business
of some best practices on work1ow redesign. In this context process,
they have developed a process description based on four • the business process with two views,
classes of parameters: (a) the operation view: how is a work1ow operation
implemented? (number of tasks in a job, relative
• work system details, including the sequencing of tasks, size of tasks, nature of tasks, degree of customiza-
the task consolidation and the scheduling of jobs. tion), and
(b) the behavior view: when is a work1ow executed?

Quality
(sequencing of tasks, task consolidation, schedul-
ing of jobs, etc.),
• the participants in the business process considering:
(a) the organization structure (elements: roles, users,
groups, departments, etc.) and
(b) the organization population (individuals: agents
which can have tasks assigned for execution and
relationships between them), Time
Cost
• the information the business process uses or creates,
• the technology the business process uses and Dnally,
• the external environment other than the customers.
This framework will be used to classify the best practices

for BPR that we will identify in Section four. But prior to
that we present in the following an evaluation framework
that helps assessing the e>ects of the best practices on the
redesigned business process.
Flixibility
3. Evaluation framework
Fig. 3. The devil’s quadrangle.
Brand and Van der Kolk [11] distinguish four main di-
mensions in the e>ects of redesign measures: time, cost,
quality and 1exibility. Ideally, a redesign of a business pro-
cess decreases the time required to handle an order, it de- aspect of each of the four dimensions. We will focus on
creases the required cost of executing the business pro- some common and straightforward interpretations.
cess, it improves the quality of the service delivered and
it improves the ability of the business process to react to
variation. The attractive property of their model is that, in 4. Best practices
general, improving upon one dimension may have a weak-
ening e>ect on another. For example, reconciliation tasks Over the last 20 years, best practices have been col-
may be added in a business process to improve on the qual- lected and applied in various areas, such as business plan-
ity of the delivered service, but this may have a drawback ning, healthcare, manufacturing and the software develop-
on the timeliness of the service delivery. To signify the dif- ment process (e.g. [26–29]). Although an ideal best practice
Dcult trade-o>s that sometimes have to be made they refer prescribes the best way to treat a particular problem that can
to their model as the devil’s quadrangle. It is depicted in be replicated in any situation or setting, it is more fruitful to
Fig. 3. see it as something that “needs to be adapted in skilfull ways
Awareness of the trade-o> that underlies a redesign mea- in response to prevailing conditions” [27]. In this section
sure is very important in the redesign of a business process. we describe such best practices, which can actually support
Sometimes, the e>ect of a redesign measure may be that the the redesigner of a business process in facing the technical
result from some point of view is worse than the existing BPR challenge: the implementation of an improved process
business process. Also, the application of several best prac- design. The presentation of these best practices especially
tices may result in the (partly) neutralization of the desired aims at BPR e>orts where an existing business process is
e>ects of each of the single measures. taken as basis for its redesign. A best practice can then
Each of the four dimensions of the devil’s quadrangle may be applied locally to boost the overall performance. Taking
be made operational in di>erent ways. For example, there the existing process as starting point contrasts sharply with
are several types of cost and even so many directions to fo- the so-called clean-sheet approaches, i.e., where the pro-
cus on when attempting to decrease cost. The translation of cess is designed from scratch. There is considerable discus-
the general concepts time, cost, quality and 1exibility to a sion in literature on the choice between these alternatives
more precise meaning is context sensitive. The key perfor- (see, e.g. [30]), but taking the existing process as a starting
mance indicators of an organization or—more directly—the point is in practice the most common way of developing a
performance targets formulated for a redesign e>ort should new business process, as observed e.g. by Aldowaisan and
ideally be formulated as much more precise applications of Gaafar [31].
the four named dimensions. The presented best practices in this paper are often de-
In our discussion of the e>ects of redesign measures we rived from experience gained within large companies or by
will not try to assess their e>ectiveness in every thinkable consultancy Drms in BPR engagements. For example, the
best practices as proposed by Peppard and Rowland [32] are 4.1. Customer
derived from experiences of the Toyota company. It should
be noted that many of the best practices lack an adequate 4.1.1. Control relocation: ‘move controls towards the
(quantitative) support, as observed by, e.g. Van der Aalst customer’
[33]. Not every best practice that we encountered in our liter- Di>erent checks and reconciliation operations that are part
ature survey is incorporated in this overview. Some of them of a business process may be moved towards the customer.
proved to be more on the strategic level, e.g. on the selection Klein [35] gives the example of PaciDc Bell that moved its
of products to be o>ered by a company, or were thought to billing controls towards its customers eliminating in this way
be of very limited general application, e.g. they were spe- the bulk of its billing errors. It also improved customer’s
ciDc for a certain industry. The presented best practices are satisfaction. A disadvantage of moving a control towards
universal in the sense that they are applicable within the a customer is higher probability of fraud, resulting in less
context of any business process, regardless of the product yield.
or service delivered. This best practice is named by Klein [35].
Improving a process can concern any of the components
of the framework we adopted in Section 2. Thus, we classify 4.1.2. Contact reduction: ‘reduce the number of contacts
the best practices in a way that respects the framework we with customers and third parties’
have adopted. We identify best practices that are oriented The exchange of information with a customer or third
towards: party is always time-consuming. Especially when informa-
tion exchanges take place by regular mail, substantial wait
• Customers, which focus on improving contacts with cus-
times may be involved. Also, each contact introduces the
tomers.
possibility of intruding an error. Hammer and Champy [6]
• Business process operation, which focus on how to im-
describe a case where the multitude of bills, invoices and
plement the work1ow,
receipts creates a heavy reconciliation burden. Reducing the
• Business process behavior, which focus on when the
number of contacts may therefore decrease throughput time
work1ow is executed,
and boost quality. Note that it is not always necessary to
• Organization, which considers both the structure of the
skip certain information exchanges, but that it is possible to
organization (mostly the allocation of resources) and the
combine them with limited extra cost. A disadvantage of a
resources involved (types and number).
smaller number of contacts might be the loss of essential
• Information, which describes best practices related to the
information, which is a quality issue. Combining contacts
information the business process uses, creates, may use
may result in the delivery or receipt of too much data, which
or may create.
involves cost.
• Technology, which describes best practices related to the
This best practice is mentioned by Hammer and Champy
technology the business process uses or may use.
[6]. Buzacott [7] has investigated this best practice
• External environment, which try to improve upon
quantitatively.
the collaboration and communication with the third
parties
4.1.3. Integration: ‘consider the integration with a
Note that this distinction is not mutually exclusive. There- business process of the customer or a supplier’
fore, some best practices could have been assigned to more This best practice can be seen as exploiting the
than one of these classes. supply-chain concept known in production [37]. The ac-
From this classiDcation it is clear that product-oriented tual application of this best practice may take on di>erent
best practices are not taken into account. This is related forms. For example, when two parties have to agree upon
to the fact that a redesign focuses on already existing a product they jointly produce, it may be more e=cient to
business processes and not on the product to be pro- perform several intermediate reviews than performing one
cessed. We believe that the early design of the process large review after both parties have completed their part.
is strongly connected to the product, see our earlier pa- In general, integrated business processes should render a
per [34]. Essentially, the paper describes a formal method more e=cient execution, both from a time and cost perspec-
for deriving a work1ow considering the structure of the tive. The drawback of integration is that mutual dependence
product. The method is applied in the context of pro- grows and, therefore, 1exibility may decrease.
cess design based on a clean-sheet approach, where the Both Klein [35] and Peppard and Rowland [32] mention
prior process is not taken into account. In the case of this best practice (Fig. 4).
a redesign, the derived work1ow can be considered as
a Drst rough process to which the following best prac- 4.1.4. Evaluation
tices can be further applied, thus allowing to take into Using the evaluation framework as introduced in
consideration the lessons learnt form the past in the Section 3, a summary of the general e>ects of the three
organization. customer best practices can be seen in Fig. 5.
Internal process
1 2 3
1 2 3
Fig. 6. Task elimination.
business process they are part of. Ignoring this phenomenon

1 2 3
may result in a less e>ective management of this ’sub1ow’
and a lower e=ciency. Applying this best practice may yield
Client/supplier faster processing times and less cost. Also, distinguishing
common sub1ows of many di>erent 1ows may yield e=-
Fig. 4. Integration. ciency gains. Yet, it may also result in more coordination
problems between the business process (quality) and less
possibilities for rearranging the business process as a whole
(1exibility).
Quality This best practice has been mentioned in one form
or another by Hammer and Champy [6], Rupp and
Russell [39], Peppard and Rowland [32] and Berg and
Pottjewijd [38].
4.2.2. Task elimination: ‘eliminate unnecessary tasks

from a business process’
Cost Time A common way of regarding a task as unnecessary is
when it adds no value from a customer’s point of view. Typ-
ically, control tasks in a business process do not do this; they
are incorporated in the model to Dx problems created (or
not elevated) in earlier steps. Control tasks are often iden-
tiDed by iterations. Tasks redundancy can also be consid-
Control relocation ered as a speciDc case of task elimination (Fig. 6). In order
Contact reduction
to identify redundant tasks, Castano et al. [40] have devel-
Flexibility oped entity-based similarity coe=cients. They help automat-
Integration ically checking the degree of similarities between tasks (or
activities).
Fig. 5. Evaluation of customer best practices. The aims of this best practice are to increase the speed of
processing and to reduce the cost of handling an order. An
important drawback may be that the quality of the service
The gray square represents a neutral e>ect on all four deteriorates.
distinguished dimensions. The e>ects of a best practice are This best practice is widespread in literature, for example,
represented by the other polygons. A positive (negative) ef- see Peppard and Rowland [32] Berg and Pottjewijd [38] and
fect of a best practice on a speciDc dimension is signiDed Van der Aalst and Van Hee [41]. Buzacott [36] illustrates the
by its corner extending beyond (staying within) the neutral quantitative e>ects of eliminating iterations with a simple
square. For example, the integration best practice has posi- model.
tive e>ects on the cost and time dimensions (i.e. it reduces
cost and time), a negative e>ect on the 1exibility (i.e. it 4.2.3. Order-based work: ‘consider removing
reduces 1exibility) and a neutral e>ect on the quality. All batch-processing and periodic activities from a business
depicted e>ects are scored on a relative scale. process’
Some notable examples of disturbances in handling a sin-
4.2. Business process operation gle order are: (a) its piling up in a batch and (b) periodic
activities, e.g. because processing depends on a computer
4.2.1. Order types: ‘determine whether tasks are related system that is only available at speciDc times. Getting rid
to the same type of order and, if necessary, distinguish of these constraints may signiDcantly speed up the handling
new business processes’ of individual orders. On the other hand, e=ciencies of scale
Especially Berg and Pottjewijd [38] convincingly warn can be reached by batch processing. Also, the cost of making
for parts of business processes that are not speciDc for the information systems permanently available may be costly.
1 1+2 3
3 Fig. 8. Task composition.
Fig. 7. Triage.
Quality
This best practice results from our own reengineering

experience.
4.2.4. Triage: ‘consider the division of a general task into

two or more alternative tasks’ or ‘consider the integration
of two or more alternative tasks into one general task’ Cost Time
When applying this best practice in its Drst and most pop-
ular form, it is possible to design tasks that are better aligned
with the capabilities of resources and the characteristics of
the orders being processed (Fig. 7). Both interpretations im-
prove upon the quality of the business process. Distinguish-
ing alternative tasks also facilitates a better utilization of re- Case types
sources, with obvious cost and time advantages. On the other
Task elimination
hand, too much specialization can make processes become
Flexibility
less 1exible, less e=cient, and cause monotonous work with Case-based work
repercussions for quality.
An alternative form of the triage best practice is to divide Fig. 9. Evaluation of business process operation best practices (I).
a task into similar instead of alternative tasks for di>erent
subcategories of the orders being processed. For example,
a special cash desk may be set up for customers with an This best practice is related to the triage best practice in
expected low processing time. the sense that they both are concerned with the division and
Note that this best practice is in some sense similar to the combination of tasks.
order types best practice we mentioned in this section. The It is probably the most cited best practice, mentioned by
main interpretation of the triage concept can be seen as a Hammer and Champy [6], Rupp and Russell [39], Peppard
translation of the order type best practice on a task level. and Rowland [32], Berg and Pottjewijd [38], Seidmann and
The triage concept is mentioned by Klein [35], Berg and Sundararajan [25], Reijers and Goverde [44], Van der Aalst
Pottjewijd [38] and Van der Aalst and Van Hee [41]. Zapf [45] and Van der Aalst and Van Hee [41]. Some of these
and Heinzl [42] show the positive e>ects of triage within authors only consider one part of this best practice, e.g. com-
the setting of a call center. Dewan et al. [43] study the im- bining smaller tasks into one. Buzacott [36], Seidmann and
pact of the triage on the organization in terms of cycle-time Sundararajan [25] and Van der Aalst [45] provide quantita-
reduction. tive support for the optimality of this best practice for simple
models.
4.2.5. Task composition: ‘combine small tasks into
composite tasks and divide large tasks into workable 4.2.6. Evaluation
smaller tasks’ The assessment of the best practices that aim at the busi-
Combining tasks should result in the reduction of setup ness process operation is summarized in Figs. 9 and 10.
times, i.e., the time that is spent by a resource to become The meaning of the shapes in these Dgures is similar to
familiar with the speciDcs of a order. By executing a large that of the shapes in Fig. 5.
task which used to consist of several smaller ones, some
positive e>ect may also be expected on the quality of the 4.3. Business process behavior
delivered work. On the other hand, making tasks too large
may result in (a) smaller run-time 1exibility and (b) lower 4.3.1. Resequencing: ‘move tasks to more appropriate
quality as tasks become unworkable. Both e>ects are exactly places’
countered by dividing tasks into smaller ones. Obviously, In existing business processes, actual tasks orderings
smaller tasks may also result in longer setup times (Fig. 8). do not reveal the necessary dependencies between tasks
Quality
1 2 3
Fig. 12. Knock-out.
Cost Time
1
Triage
Task composition
Fig. 13. Parallelism.
(larger tasks)
Flexibility
takes a longer throughput time than a full parallel checking
Fig. 10. Evaluation of business process operation best practices of all conditions.
(II). The knock-out best practice is a speciDc form of the
resequencing best practice. Van der Aalst [45] mentions
this best practice and also gives quantitative support for its
optimality.
3 1 2
4.3.3. Parallelism: ‘consider whether tasks may be
executed in parallel’
The obvious e>ect of putting tasks in parallel is that the
Fig. 11. Resequencing.
throughput time may be considerably reduced (Fig. 13).
The applicability of this best practice in business process
redesign is large. In practical experiences we have had with
(Fig. 11). Sometimes it is better to postpone a task if it is analyzing existing business process, tasks were mostly or-
not required for immediately following tasks, so that per- dered sequentially without the existence of hard logical re-
haps its execution may prove to become super1uous. This strictions prescribing such an order.
saves cost. Also, a task may be moved into the proximity A drawback of introducing more parallelism in a business
of a similar task, in this way diminishing setup times. process that incorporates possibilities of knock-outs is that
The resequencing best practice is mentioned as such by the cost of business process execution may increase. Also,
Klein [35]. It is also known as ’process order optimization’. the management of business processes with concurrent be-
havior can become more complex, which may introduce er-
4.3.2.
4.3.2. Knock-out:
Knock-out: ‘order
‘order knock-outs in aandecreasing
knock-outs in increasing rors (quality) or restrict run-time adaptations (1exibility).
order
order of
of effort
eCort and
and inin an
a decreasing orderofoftermination
increasing order termination The parallelism best practice is a speciDc form of the
probability'
probability’ resequencing best practice we mentioned at the start of this
A typical part of a business process is the checking of section. It is mentioned by Rupp and Russell [39], Buzacott
various conditions that must be satisDed to deliver a positive [36], Berg and Pottjewijd [38] and Van der Aalst and Van
end result. Any condition that is not met may lead to a ter- Hee [41]. Van der Aalst [45] provides quantitative support
mination of that part of the business process: the knock-out for this best practice.
(Fig. 12). If there is freedom in choosing the order in which
the various conditions are checked, the condition that has 4.3.4. Exception: ‘design business processes for typical
the most favorable ratio of expected knock-out probabil- orders and isolate exceptional orders from normal @ow’
ity versus the expected e>ort to check the condition should Exceptions may seriously disturb normal operations. An
be pursued. Next, the second best condition, etc. This way exception, will require workers to get acquainted with the
of ordering checks yields on average the least costly busi- speciDcs of the exception, although they may not be able to
ness process execution. There is no obvious drawback on handle it. Setup times are then wasted. Isolating exceptions,
this best practice, although it may not always be possible to for example by a triage, will make the handling of normal
freely order these kinds of checks. Also, implementing this orders more e=cient. Isolating exceptions may possibly in-
best practice may result in a (part of a) business process that crease the overall performance as speciDc expertise can be
resource allocation is seriously reduced. The execution of

Quality an order may experience substantial queue time when the
person to whom it is assigned is not available.
The order assignment best practice is described by Rupp
and Russell [39], Hammer and Champy [6], Reijers and
Goverde [44] and Van der Aalst and Van Hee [41].
4.4.1.2. Flexible assignment: ‘assign resources in such a

Cost Time way that maximal @exibility is preserved for the near fu-
ture’. For example, if a task can be executed by either of
two available resources, assign it to the most specialized re-
source. In this way, the possibilities to have the free, more
Resequencing general resource execute another task are maximal.
Parellellism The advantage of this best practice is that the overall
queue time is reduced: it is less probable that the execution
Knock-out
of an order has to await the availability of a speciDc resource.
Exception Flexibility Another advantage is that the workers with the highest spe-
cialization can be expected to take on most of the work,
Fig. 14. Evaluation of business process behavior best practices. which may result in a higher quality. The disadvantages of
this best practice can be diverse. For example, work load
may become unbalanced resulting in less job satisfaction.
Also, possibilities for specialists to evolve into generalists
are reduced.
This best practice is mentioned by Van der Aalst and
1 2 3
Van Hee [41].
4.4.1.3. Centralization: ‘treat geographically dispersed

Fig. 15. Order assignment.
resources as if they are centralized’. This best practice is
explicitly aimed at exploiting the beneDts of a Work1ow
Management System or WfMS for short [23]. After all,
build up by workers working on the exceptions. The price when a WfMS takes care of assigning work to resources it
paid is that the business process will become more com- has become less relevant where these resources are located
plex, possibly decreasing its 1exibility. Also, if no special geographically. In this sense, this best practice is a special
knowledge is developed to handle the exceptions (which is form of the integral technology best practice (see Section
costly) no major improvements are likely to occur. 4.6). The speciDc advantage of this measure is that resources
This best practice is mentioned by Poyssick and Han- can be committed more 1exibly, which gives a better uti-
naford [46] and Hammer and Champy [6]. lization and possibly a better throughput time. The disad-
vantages are similar to that of the integral technology best
4.3.5. Evaluation practice.
The assessment of the best practices that target the be- This best practice is mentioned by Van der Aalst and Van
havior of the business process can be seen in Fig. 14. Hee [41].
The meaning of the shapes in these Dgures is similar to
that of the shapes in Fig. 5. 4.4.1.4. Split responsibilities: ‘avoid assignment of task re-
sponsibilities to people from diCerent functional units’ (see
4.4. Organization Fig. 16). The idea behind this best practice is that tasks for
which di>erent departments share responsibility are more
4.4.1. Structure likely to be a source of neglect and con1ict. Reducing the
4.4.1.1. Order assignment: ‘let workers perform as many overlap in responsibilities should lead to a better quality
steps as possible for single orders’ (see Fig. 15). By using of task execution. Also, a higher responsiveness to avail-
order assignment in the most extreme form, for each task able work may be developed so that customers are served
execution the resource is selected from the ones capable quicker. On the other hand, reducing the e>ective number
of performing it that has worked on the order before—if of resources that is available for a work item may have a
any. The obvious advantage of this best practice is that this negative e>ect on its throughput time, as more queuing may
person will get acquainted with the case and will need less occur.
setup time. An additional beneDt may be that the quality of This speciDc best practice is mentioned by Rupp and
service is increased. On the negative side, the 1exibility of Russell [39] and Berg and Pottjewijd [38].
that will work on it. The di>erence with the order assign-
ment practice is that the emphasis is on management of the
process and not on its execution.
The most important aim of the best practice is to improve
1 2 3
upon the external quality of a business process. The business
process will become more transparent from the viewpoint
of a customer as the case manager provides a single point
Fig. 16. Split responsibilities.
of contact. This positively a>ects customer satisfaction. It
may also have a positive e>ect on the internal quality of the
business process, as someone is accountable for correcting
mistakes. Obviously, the assignment of a case manager has
Dnancial consequences as capacity must be devoted to this
job.
This best practice is mentioned by Hammer and Champy
1 2 3 [6] and Van der Aalst and Van Hee [41]. Buzacott [36] has
provided some quantitative support for a speciDc interpre-
tation of this best practice.
Fig. 17. Numerical involvement.
4.4.1.8. Evaluation. The assessment of the best practices

for the structure of the organization is depicted in Figs. 18
4.4.1.5. Customer teams: ‘consider assigning teams out of
and 19.
diCerent departmental workers that will take care of the
complete handling of speciDc sorts of orders . This best
practice is a variation of the order assignment best prac- 4.4.2. Population
tice. Depending on its exact desired form, the customer Extra resources: ‘if capacity is not suEcient, consider
team best practice may be implemented by the order as- increasing the number of resources (see Fig. 20). This
signment best practice. Also, a customer team may involve straightforward best practice speaks for itself. The obvious
more workers with the same qualiDcations, in this way re- e>ect of extra resources is that there is more capacity for
laxing the strict requirements of the order assignment best handling orders, in this way reducing queue time. It may
practice. also help to implement a more 1exible assignment policy.
Advantages and disadvantages are similar to those of the Of course, hiring or buying extra resources has its cost.
order assignment best practices. In addition, work as a team Note the contrast of this best practice with the numerical
may improve the attractiveness of the work and a better involvement best practice.
understanding, which are both quality aspects. This best practice is mentioned by Berg and Pottjewijd
This best practice is mentioned by Peppard and Row- [38]. Van Hee et al. [47] discuss the optimality of several
land [32], Hammer and Champy [6] and Berg and strategies to optimally allocate additional resources in a busi-
Pottjewijd [38]. ness process.
4.4.1.6. Numerical involvement: ‘minimize the number of 4.4.2.1. Specialist-generalist: ‘consider to make resources
departments, groups and persons involved in a business more specialized or more generalist’ (see Fig. 21). Re-
process’ (see Fig. 17). Applying this best practice should sources may be turned from specialists into generalists or
lead to less coordination problems. Less time spent of co- the other way round. A specialist resource can be trained
ordination makes more time available for the processing of for other qualiDcations; a generalist may be assigned to the
orders. Reducing the number of departments may lead to same type of work for a longer period of time, so that his
less split responsibilities, with similar pros and cons as the other qualiDcations become obsolete. When the redesign of
split responsibilities best practice. In addition, smaller num- a new business process is considered, application of this best
bers of specialized units may prohibit the build of expertise practice comes down to considering the specialist–general-
(a quality issue) and routine (a cost issue). ist ratio of new hires.
This best practice is described by Hammer and A specialist builds up routine more quickly and may have
Champy [6], Rupp and Russell [39] and Berg and a more profound knowledge than a generalist. As a result
Pottjewijd [38]. he or she works quicker and delivers higher quality. On the
other hand, the availability of generalists adds more 1exi-
4.4.1.7. Case manager: ‘appoint one person as responsible bility to the business process and can lead to a better utiliza-
for the handling of each type of order, the case manager’. tion of resources. Depending on the degree of specializa-
The case manager is responsible for a speciDc order or cus- tion or generalization, either type of resource may be more
tomer, but he or she is not necessarily the (only) resource costly.
Quality
Fig. 21. Specialist-generalist.
Cost Time
Fig. 22. Empower.
Case assignment
Flexible assignment
Poyssick and Hannaford [4] and Berg and Pottjewijd [38]
Flexibility
stress the advantages of generalists. Rupp and Russell [39],
Centralization Seidmann and Sundararajan [25] mention both specialists
Split responsibilities and generalists.
Fig. 18. Evaluation of organization structure best practices (I). 4.4.2.2. Empower: ‘give workers most of the decision-
making authority and reduce middle management’. In
Quality traditional business processes, substantial time may be spent
on authorizing work that has been done by others. When
workers are empowered to take decisions independently,
it may result in smoother operations with lower through-
put times. The reduction of middle management from the
business process also reduces the labor cost spent on the
processing of orders. A drawback may be that the quality of
Cost Time
the decisions is lower and that obvious errors are no longer
found. If bad decisions or errors result in rework, the cost
of handling a order may actually increase compared to the
original situation (Fig. 22).
This best practice is named by Hammer and Champy [6],
Rupp and Russell [39], Seidmann and Sundarajan [25] and
Poyssick and Hannaford [4]. Buzacott [36] shows with a
Customer teams
simple quantitative model that this best practice may indeed
Numerical
increase performance.
involvement
Flexibility
Case manager
4.4.2.3. Evaluation. The assessment of the best practices
Fig. 19. Evaluation of organization structure best practices (II). for the organization population is given in Fig. 23.
Note that only one of the two interpretations of the spe-
cialist–generalist best practice is shown in Fig. 23.
4.5. Information
4.5.1. Control addition: ‘check the completeness and

1 2 3
correctness of incoming materials and check the output
before it is send to customers’
This best practice promotes the addition of controls to
Fig. 20. Extra resources.
a business process. It may lead to a higher quality of the
business process execution and, as a result, to less required
Note that this best practice di>ers from the triage con- rework (Fig. 24). Obviously, an additional control will re-
cept in the sense that the focus is not on the division of quire time and will absorb resources. Note the contrast of
tasks. the intent of this best practice with that of the task elimi-
Quality Quality
Cost Time Cost Time
Extra resources Control addition

Specialist-generalist
(more specialists) Buffering
Flexibility Flexibility
Empower
Fig. 23. Evaluation of organization population best practices. Fig. 26. Evaluation of information best practices.
gration with a third party may come down to—a copy is

maintained.
1 2
This best practice follows from our own reengineering
experience.
Fig. 24. Control addition.
4.5.2.1. Evaluation. A summary of the e>ects of the in-
formation best practices is given in Fig. 26.
4.6. Technology
4.6.1. Task automation: ‘consider automating tasks’

Fig. 25. Bu>ering. A particular positive result of automating tasks may be
that tasks can be executed faster, with less cost, and with a
better result. An obvious disadvantage is that the develop-
nation best practice, which is a business process operation ment of a system that performs a task may be very costly.
best practice (see Section 4.2). Generally speaking, a system performing a task is also less
This best practice is mentioned by Poyssick and Han- 1exible in handling variations than a human resource. In-
naford [4], Hammer and Champy [6] and Buzacott [36]. stead of fully automating a task, an automated support of
the resource executing the task may also be considered. A
4.5.2. BuCering: ‘instead of requesting information from signiDcant application of the task automation best practice
an external source, buCer it by subscribing to updates’ is the business process perspective of e-commerce: As cited
Obtaining information from other parties is a major by Gunasekaran et al. [48] and deDned by Kalakota and
time-consuming part in many business process (Fig. 25). Whinston [49] e-commerce can be seen as the application of
By having information directly available when it is re- technology towards the automation of business transactions
quired, throughput times may be substantially reduced. and work1ows.
This best practice can be compared to the caching principle This best practice is speciDcally mentioned as a redesign
microprocessors apply. Of course, the subscription fee for measure by Peppard and Rowland [32], Hammer and
information updates may be rather costly. This is especially Champy [6] and Berg and Pottjewijd [38].
so when we consider information sources that contain far
more information than is ever used. Substantial cost may 4.6.2. Integral technology: ‘try to elevate physical
also be involved with storing all the information. constraints in a business process by applying new
Note that this best practice is a weak form of the inte- technology’
gration best practice (see Section 4.1). Instead of direct ac- In general, new technology can o>er all kinds of posi-
cess to the original source of information—which the inte- tive e>ects. For example, the application of a WfMS may
Quality
Cost Time Fig. 28. Interfacing.
the trusted party best practice reduces cost and may even
cut back throughput time. On the other hand, the quality of
the business process becomes dependent upon the quality
of some other party’s work. Some coordination e>ort with
Task automation
trusted parties is also likely to be required, which diminishes
Integral technology
1exibility.
(WfMS)
Flexibility This best practice is di>erent from the bu>ering best prac-
tice (see Section 4.5), because the business process owner
Fig. 27. Evaluation of technology best practices. is not the one obtaining the information.
This best practice results from our own reengineering
experience.
result in less time that is spend on logistical tasks. A Doc-
ument Management System will open up the information 4.7.2. Outsourcing: ‘consider outsourcing a business
available on orders to all participants, which may result in process in whole or parts of it’
a better quality of service. New technology can also change Another party may be more e=cient in performing the
the traditional way of doing business by giving participants same work, so it might as well perform it for one’s own
completely new possibilities. business process.
The purchase, development, implementation, training The obvious aim of outsourcing work is that it will
and maintenance e>orts related to technology are obviously generate less cost. A drawback may be that quality
costly. In addition, new technology may arouse fear with decreases. Outsourcing also requires more coordina-
workers or may result in other subjective e>ects; this may tion e>orts and will make the business process more
decrease the quality of the business process. complex.
This best practice is mentioned by Klein [35], Peppard Note that this best practice di>ers from the trusted party
and Rowland [32], Berg and Pottjewijd [38] and Van der best practice. When outsourcing, a task is executed at run
Aalst and Van Hee [41]. time by another party. The trusted party best practice allows
for the use of a result in the (recent) past.
4.6.3. Evaluation This best practice is mentioned by Klein [35], Hammer
The discussed e>ects of both technology best practices and Champy [6] and Poyssick and Hannaford [4].
can be seen in Fig. 27.
Note that to give an idea of the diverse e>ects of the best 4.7.3. Interfacing: ‘consider a standardized interface with
practice, the e>ects of a WfMS have been depicted as an customers and partners’
example. The idea behind this best practice is that a standardized
interface will diminish the probability of mistakes, incom-
4.7. External environment plete applications, unintelligible communications, etc. (Fig.
28). A standardized interface may result in less errors (qual-
4.7.1. Trusted party: ‘instead of determining information ity), faster processing (time) and less rework (cost).
oneself, use results of a trusted party’ The interfacing best practice can be seen a speciDc inter-
Some decisions or assessments that are made within busi- pretation of the integration best practice, although it is not
ness process are not speciDc for the business process they speciDcally aimed at customers.
are part of. Other parties may have determined the same This best practice is mentioned by Hammer and Champy
information in another context, which—if it were known [6] and Poyssick and Hannaford [4].
—could replace the decision or assessment. An example is
the creditworthiness of a customer that bank A wants to es- 4.7.4. Evaluation
tablish. If a customer can present a recent creditworthiness The discussed e>ects of the external party best practices
certiDcate of bank B, then bank A will accept it. Obviously, can be seen in Fig. 29.
jan [25], Dewan et al. [43] and Van der Aalst [45] to some
Quality best practices—most of the best practices lack the support
of an analytical or empirical study. Additional work should
point out the conditions or domain validity where a best
practice would give the expected results in terms of cost/time
reduction or quality/1exibility improvement.
This introduces the future research directions for this
paper, which are:
Cost Time
• At Drst, to further validate our BPR framework and set
of best practices through an extensive survey amongst
consultants and through real case studies. The survey aims
at further identifying the most used best practices and
the framework’s elements that are crucial for BPR. Case
Trusted party studies would give further insight into how the framework
can be used during a BPR implementation.
Outsourcing • Then to investigate for all best practices when, where and
Interfacing
Flexibility how to apply or not apply them. This part is concerned
with giving indications to the size of the business process
Fig. 29. Evaluation of external party best practices. or the tasks involved. Also, it should study the relative
impact of best practices on a business process. In this
area, Foster [51] assessed the impact of BPR (essentially
5. Conclusion organizational automation impacts) in a hospital using
base lining. Also, Seidmann and Sundarajan [52] studied
In this paper we have dealt with the best practices in the popular combination of the empower and the triage
implementing BPR. A framework for classifying the best best practices (leading to decentralization and task consol-
practices was given. It is the result of the experience of other idation). They proved, using mathematical models, that
authors mixed with our own experience. It helps structuring this combination is sub-optimal in many cases.
the implementation of a BPR initiative. In this framework we • At last, to provide users with a methodology in applying
have described 29 best practices and evaluated qualitatively best practices. This includes the classiDcation of the best
their impact on the cost, quality, 1exibility and time criteria practices within the framework for BPR implementation
as deDned by Brand and van der Kolk [11]. as a basis (which was one of the purposes of this paper)
In Table 1 we summarize within our framework for BPR and as a guideline to the order/conditions in which the
the best practices’ impact and authors’ contribution to their best practices should be implemented. Of course, several
application. Examples from real cases are also given if avail- authors have already investigated this area. Harrington
able. The table shows that the best practices have been ap- [53] provided a streamlining of business process redesign
plied to several types of industries, ranging from the ac- rules. Kettinger and Teng [54] provide a framework
counts’ department at Ford industries to Fast foods, health for analyzing BPR in conjunction with several strategic
sector organizations (Baxter health care), some manufactur- dimensions. However, these approaches lack the set of
ing processes (Toyota, a furniture factory, a semi-conductors measures and guidelines to the application of the best
manufacturer), IBM credit insurance processes and various practices.
other administrative processes. Despite this wide range of
applications, and our personal experience in applying these We believe that in presenting in this paper the best practices
rules in service contexts (i.e. invoice processing and pur- together with their qualitative assessments we provide sup-
chasing), we believe there is still a need to further investi- port to the practitioner of BPR dealing with the mechanics
gate the impact and relevance of each best practice to spe- of the process. The best practices may be used as a check-
ciDc industrial segments. One recent approach in this area is list with (limited) additional guidance for the application
by MacIntosh [50], who compares private and public sector of each of these, so that a favorable redesign of a business
BPR applications. These applications cover some of the best process becomes feasible. The checklist should be incorpo-
practices we discussed in this paper (integral business pro- rated within a BPR methodology that addresses managerial
cess technology, task automation, contact reduction, etc.). aspects as well. One suggestion would be to use the Dve
MacIntosh [50] does not question the appropriateness of the themes listed by Maull et al. [55] that lead to e>ective BPR
solutions in the separate industrial segments, but stresses implementation: integrating the business strategy, integrat-
di>erences with respect to behavioral issues. ing performance measurement, creating business process ar-
On another level, Table 1 clearly shows that—except for chitectures, involving human and organizational factors and
the contributions of Buzacott [36], Seidmann and Sundara- identifying the role of information and technology.
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Omega 33 (2005) 283 – 306

Best practices in business process redesign: an overview and

Keywords: Business process redesign; Operations management; MIS; Heuristics

1. Introduction Many methodologies, techniques, and tools have been

• deDning a framework for BPR implementation and

H.A. Reijers, S. Liman Mansar / Omega 33 (2005) 283 – 306

Integration Time, Unknown Klein [35] Guideline None None

Products None None None None None None None

Van der Aalst Guideline + None Monitoring tasks, iterations

H.A. Reijers, S. Liman Mansar / Omega 33 (2005) 283 – 306

Reijers and Guideline None None

H.A. Reijers, S. Liman Mansar / Omega 33 (2005) 283 – 306

Van der Aalst Guideline None None

H.A. Reijers, S. Liman Mansar / Omega 33 (2005) 283 – 306

H.A. Reijers, S. Liman Mansar / Omega 33 (2005) 283 – 306

H.A. Reijers, S. Liman Mansar / Omega 33 (2005) 283 – 306

H.A. Reijers, S. Liman Mansar / Omega 33 (2005) 283 – 306

Interactive videodisk may be as good contact with

Taco Bell, the K-Minus system (Kitchenless

a potential buyer as any personal contact

Participants Information Technology

Fig. 1. The WCA framework of Alter [19].

CIMOSA, a business process-centered method for enter-

• the requirements deDnition level: to represent the voice

of the users, i.e. what is needed as expressed in a detailed

• the implementation description: to state in detail the

implementation solution taking into account technical

It is clear, according to this classiDcation and the nature of

BPR, that the business process framework we need is on

the design speciDcation level. Alter [19] suggests the use of

the so-called work-centered analysis framework (WCA). It

technology the business process uses. Fig. 1 shows the links

from the other “components” of a business process: the par-

ticipants, the information and the technology. Indeed, as

stated by Grant [21] it is a narrow view to only consider pro-

cation and technology. The danger of adopting too narrow a

view is that it misdirects developers to focus exclusively on

processes while ignoring a variety of other possible reengi-

neering opportunities that may result from a wider view.

for our purpose is the emphasis on technology as a separate

part of the business process. In their paper, Gunasekaran

and Nath [22] describe the advantages of integrating IT in

companies. They also list suggestions on how technology EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT

(b) the behavior view: when is a work1ow executed?

This framework will be used to classify the best practices

Fig. 6. Task elimination.

business process they are part of. Ignoring this phenomenon

4.2.2. Task elimination: ‘eliminate unnecessary tasks

3 Fig. 8. Task composition.

This best practice results from our own reengineering

4.2.4. Triage: ‘consider the division of a general task into

Fig. 12. Knock-out.

resource allocation is seriously reduced. The execution of

4.4.1.2. Flexible assignment: ‘assign resources in such a

4.4.1.3. Centralization: ‘treat geographically dispersed

4.4.1.8. Evaluation. The assessment of the best practices

Fig. 21. Specialist-generalist.

Fig. 22. Empower.