A conceptual and analytical framework for business process reengineering

BPR has become a hot buzzword in management and information systems disciplines. However, there is a lacuna in recognizing the characteristics and the way of performing BPR. In this paper, we categorize the reasons for BPR failure as the lack of understanding of and the inability to perform BPR, and we reviewed BPR based on the four key concepts: fundamental, radical, dramatic, and process. We argue that SSM can be applied in performing BPR in the following ways:

1. (1) SSM can be a general methodology for BPR,

2. (2) SSM can be an analytical framework for BPR, and

3. (3) SSM is able to deal with the ill-defined and complex business situation in a BPR effort.

To illustrate the applicability of SSM in the context of BPR, we describe a live case of a BPR effort in developing and implementing an image processing system for hospital ward ordering. Finally, in order to demonstrate the power of SSM, by extending SSM considerations of What/How, we elaborate further on the What's and How's conceptual framework of an analysis and redesign effort. Based on this framework, we review the roles of information technologies in BPR.     

“大质量”环境下质量管理的几点思考

我国推行全面质量管理以来,质量管理发挥了重要的作用,推动了产品、工程和服务质量的改进和提高。但从目前的质量管理总体情况来看,产品、工程和服务质量和质量管理还存在一些问题,制约着质量管理的整体有效性。结合石油企业实际,针对质量管理现状、质量形势和存在问题,从机制建设、过程控制、资源配置、质量投入、质量监管等方面进行了分析和探讨,通过加强质量管理各项工作．提升质量管理的有效性。     

地震勘探数据处理工程化质量监控方法及其应用

处理项目工程化质量监控作为地震勘探数据处理过程质量控制的一项重要手段,近几年来在实际工作中被广泛应用,并逐步形成了一种行之有效的质量监控方法。介绍了处理项目工程化质量监控方法的主要特点、各监控点的设置、监控管理以及在实际中的应用等。     

Process reengineering: A review of enablers

In an attempt to improve productivity, performance and overall competitiveness in both domestic and global markets, organisations have realised that there is a need to reform their business practices and become more customer focused. Consequently, these organisations have recognised the need for organisational change, but do not necessarily know how and what to change, to achieve improvements in productivity and performance. Process reengineering has been described as the elixir for achieving dramatic improvements in production time and cost. Process reengineering is not about fixing current processes, but rebuilding them, with the aim of process improvement. This paper will explain what is meant by process reengineering and suggests that before an organisation attempts to process reengineer, a thorough understanding of current practices, procedures and enablers of change are required. Typically, information technology is implemented as the key change enabler of process reengineering implemented as the key enabler without prior consideration to other enablers such as organisational, human resource and total quality management. This paper suggests that the use of information technology as an enabler is rarely sufficient to cause process change. The paper concludes by suggesting that a combination of information technology, organisational and human resource enablers and a total quality management based philosophy are requisite for the effective redesign of business processes.     

The consultants' offensive: reengineering – from fad to technique

Business process reengineering has tended to be seen as a management fashion and the brainchild of the gurus who popularised it. Yet this overlooks the role of consultants in the spread of BPR and the system itself as a specific technique of change management. In fact BPR played a significant role in the push for new business in management consultancy and has become integral to an armoury of consultant tools. This article explores reengineering as a consultancy solution in the context of the external expert's distinctive claims on knowledge, and argues that this approach reveals new insights into both reengineering and the consultancy process.     

Professionals in the NHS – a case study of business process re-engineering

Rather than providing evidence of business process re-engineering (BPR) as another example of cultural change rhetoric, this case study shows BPR as a substantive initiative that has had a considerable impact on health care professionals. A hybrid of differing bureaucratic professions allows for a diversity specific to the health service. The study highlights a number of controversial issues unique to health care professionals, particularly in the areas of job redesign, multiskilling and empowerment.     

适应市场需求建设标准化的石油工程技术服务队伍

标准化工作是提高石油工程技术服务质量、促进企业发展的有效途径。做好标准化工作是企业实现现代管理和科学管理的需要。面对加入WTO和市场放开的严峻形势，中小型石油工程技术服务企业要适应市场的需求，建立适应市场经济的企业标准体系，用标准化工作促进技术创新，加强服务意识，提高人员素质，改进技术装备，做强做专石油工程技术服务的主营业务。     

Business process re-engineering in theory and practice: business paradise regained?

This article examines the hype surrounding BPR from a historical, theoretical and empirical perspective. It delineates three ways in which politics are critical to understanding BPR and uses findings on BPR practice, including from case study work and a 1994/5 UK survey conducted by the authors, to locate and explain BPR's appeal and also the less radical outcomes of BPR practice.     

浅议石油企业物资采购质量监督的作用及途径

质量管理在物资采购管理中具有攀足轻重的作用,是提升石油物资工作水平的前提,也是抵制假冒伪劣产品,确保采购物资质量,提升企业工程质量的保障。各企业物资采购部门应充分利用集中采购优势,严格执行质量标准,强化采购物资质量的过程控制,规范物资从采购计划编制、合格供方评定、物资采购合同签订、物资人库检验和验收、物资保管保养,到物资出库发放等各个质量控制点的管理,为本企业创新提升工程质量,促进“名牌”战略发展做出贡献。     

Do low-quality products affect high-quality entry? Multiproduct firms and nonstop entry in airline markets

This paper studies the effect of product ownership and quality on nonstop entry in the airline industry. Specifically, this paper empirically examines the decision of an airline to offer high-quality nonstop service between cities given that the airline may or may not be offering lower quality one-stop service. I find that airlines that offer one-stop service through a hub are less likely to enter that same market with nonstop service than those that do not. In addition, the quality of the one-stop service is an important determinant of entry. Airlines are more likely to enter a market with nonstop service if their own or their rival's one-stop service in the market is of lower quality. Estimates suggest that the entry of a rival nonstop carrier diminishes the probability a carrier enters the market with nonstop service. However, airlines offering one-stop service respond differently to nonstop rivals. In particular, relative to other carriers, those offering one-stop service are more likely to enter markets if there are nonstop rivals, suggesting that cannibalization effects are diminished in the presence of nonstop competition.     

现代制造系统环境下的质量信息技术

企业为了确保在激烈的市场竞争中取胜，必须运用信息技术、计算机技术等先进技术提高企业质量管理的水平，增强质量保证和质量控制的有效性。现代制造技术系统CIMS的质量保证系统是在网络数据库的支持下，从产品设计、开发，到售后服务全生命周期中对质量有关的数据进行有效的采集、处理、评价和决策，对质量管理、质量保证、质量控制活动进行有效的管理，实现企业质量管理的整体优化．以达到全面满足顾客要求，提高市场竞争能力的目的。     

Epochs and institutions: contextualizing business process re-engineering

Capitalism is currently undergoing an epochal change. The associated corporate change is sticky for reasons of institutional inertia. Business process re-engineering is a corporate response which should be understood in technical, social and political terms. Core elements of BPR are identified, illustrated, and critiqued, partly through a BPR case researched by the authors.     

Optimum design of a new VSS-NP chart with adjusting sampling inspection

The classical Shewhart NP control chart is used widely in industrial and service practice for the relative simplicity of handling attribute quality characteristics. However, the static strategies become less and less adequate for today's highly competitive industrial society because of their low efficiency to detect slight process changes promptly. To improve the capability of control charts, some adaptive schemes, such as variable sample size (VSS), variable sample interval (VSI), and variable control limits (VCL), have been extensively studied in the recent decade. In this paper, we propose a new VSS NP control chart with adjusting sampling inspection (called ASI-NP chart) and give the performance analysis using Markov chain. As the optimal model is related to an integer nonlinear program, genetic algorithms (GAs) are involved and Taguchi experiments are applied to configure the parameter of the GAs in numerical examples. The comparison study between classical NP chart and ASI-NP chart is conducted, and the result shows that ASI-NP chart's performance characteristics are significantly better than those of classical NP charts in all situations, especially, in processes with slight shift and high quality.     

ISO 9000标准和6西格玛管理

针对ISO 9000质量管理与6西格玛管理法均是目前世界范围内被广泛使用的质量管理方法,均给正确实践其理论和方法的企业带来了巨大变化,但2种质量管理方法又有区别,从2种质量管理方法的思想方法入手,从质量标准、业绩改进、过程模式、质量管理等方面进行了对比分析:指出ISO 9000族标准是组织的质量管理工作的基础,可为企业提供一个基本的质量保证系统,是一个工作程序化的基础平台,而6西格玛管理法则给组织的质量管理工作带来了一个新的、垂直的方法体系,并认为对于任何一个组织来说,应该依据ISO 9000标准建立质量管理体系,加强其质量管理的基础建设工作,同时实施6西格玛管理法,以便推进和加强组织的质量改进工作。     

期间核查在油田生产计量管理中的应用

期间核查是是保证计量标准装置可靠性的质量管理体系中重要一环,确保了量值传递过程的稳定性与可靠性。企业的计量工作可紧密结合企业的生产特点和管理现状,以服务油田生产为中心,拓展计量工作思路,将期间核查工作进一步深化,不再局限于实验室管理中,而是借鉴应用到生产过程中。在油田生产测量过程中引入期间核查工作机制,以加强对测量数据的管理和监控,确保生产现场采集数据的准确持续有效,也可作为今后企业计量工作努力发展的方向。     

基于TRIZ和精益管理的质检优化模型研究

质量作为产品的核心，生产过程的质量检测环节显得尤为重要，合理的质量检测与优化模型是企业针对本身问题切实需要的。但是伴随着消费需求的变化，对质量的要求与日俱增，同时对可靠性等其他方面有更高要求。而当前企业对于质检环节存在倏忽、返工等资源浪费现象，并且在人力、财力、物力等方面没有统筹计划，不能使资源效益最大化。本研究通过利用TRIZ创新理论，从因果分析、矛盾、发明原理等多方面，集合工业工程中精益生产、生产线平衡等思想，为企业的质检环节提取了技术创新和管理创新的优化模型，并且为企业未来的潜在问题提供一定的解决流程，优化企业内部结构，促进创新驱动这一核心方法，加快企业转型升级更新换代。     

Empirically testing ES success factors in business process reengineering

Previously proposed success factors for Expert Systems implementation are field tested in the context of business process reengineering (BPR) projects. Due to its nature mimicking human expert behavior, ES technology applications in BPR provide a unique opportunity to study major organization changes within a relatively short time. Using Pearson correlations and multivariate regression analysis, eight ES implementation success factors proposed in the literature were empirically tested in this study in terms of their importance to the BPR benefits derived from the application. Sixty-two ES applications within E.I. Dupont de Nemours and Company dealing with business process changes significant enough to be called BPR were used. Despite the relatively small sample size, six of the eight success factors were corroborated: user satisfaction with the ES, the importance and difficulty of the business problem addressed, user attitudes toward ES technology and the particular ES project, the degree of user involvement in the ES implementation process, and the ES developer(s) skills.     

应用过程方法提升作业质量

通过井下作业质量数据,分析了文南油田在井下作业过程中发生的不合格作业工序、不合格作业井和造成工程事故井的主要原因,应用过程方法从"人、物、环、管"等直接环节入手,改善质量过程管理,措施实施后见到了一定成效,作业质量得到了提升,油水井免修周期得到了延长,为改善油藏经营管理水平和整体效益起到了积极作用。     

Publication of Information and Market Response: The Case of Airline on Time Performance Reports

This paper investigates market response to publication of on time performance information. Theory suggests that reduction in search costs generates more honest airlines and better quality service, a distribution of price-quality bundles, increased demand, exit by inefficient airlines and reduction of price rigidity. An ARIMA study of U.S. domestic airline operations finds that after publication of performance information the market generated better performance, increased quality distribution, enhanced demand, exit by four of fourteen airlines and reduced price-quality rigidity. Publication of information may improve performance in markets characterized by asymmetric information and high search costs.     

浅谈如何提供一流的工程技术服务

从现场管理基本技能、全员素质提升、机器设备管理、物料管理、标准化作业管理、有效的沟通等方面阐述了在工程技术服务提供过程中如何提高质量的问题。