Chapter 23: Business Process re-engineering

1. Business process re-engineering (BPR) is a ______________ intervention that involves switching attention away from fragmented functional thinking towards ___________ processes.

technostructural/cross-functional cross-functional/technostructural economic/cross-functional technical/people management

2. The structure of most organizations has been influenced by the principle of the division of labour, first articulated by _________ in The Wealth of Nations.

Adam Jones Henry Ford Adam Smith John Hayes

3. This principle (the division of labour) manifests itself today in organizations that structure activities according to _______________ rather than value-creating processes.

specialist functions strict hierarchies teamwork cross-functional teams

4. Kaplan and Murdock (1991) argue that focusing attention on and redesigning core processes can make them faster and more flexible, and make organizations more responsive to changes in:

competitive conditions consumer demands product life cycles all of the above

5. Rather than simply asking whether it is possible to improve the way something is done, BPR involves questioning:

how the organization does what it does why the organization does what it does when something new should be done all of the above

6. BPR typically involves _____ steps, beginning with ___________.

three steps/process mapping five steps/identifying processes for reengineering five steps/defining key performance objectives seven steps/process mapping

7. Hammer and Champy (1993) suggest three criteria for choosing which processes to re-engineer and the order in which this might be done. These are dysfunction, importance and ______________.

feasibility blockage profitable none of the above

8. Key performance objectives are based on what the re-engineering team and other stakeholders believe _______ require/s from the process.

they the customer managers employees

9. Langley et al. (1996) advocate a PDSA cycle for process improvement that involves:

planning, doing, studying, acting perusing, doing, surveying, analysing planning, demonstrating, studying, assessing proposing, demonstrating, suggesting, acting

10. Why do the results of BPR differ so much?

Because of contextual factors Because it is an unreliable intervention Because it doesn’t work in some industries Both a and c

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