Re-Engineering

Re-engineering was pioneered by MIT Professor Michael Hammer in the early 1990s, and gained traction thanks to the support of established management figures such as Peter Drucker. Sharing parallel with popular approaches referred to as Lean and 6-Sigma, the goal it to address customer needs more effectively and/or at lower cost, and enable non-value adding functions to effectively become obsolete. In contrast to its cousins Lean/6-Sigma, re-engineering emphasis is on developing cross-functional teams and better capabilities for data dissemination. It generally involves analysis followed by radical redesign of core business processes, in order to achieve dramatic improvement in productivity.

Method:

1. Articulate a focused customer need and how the client’s organization addresses it
2. Rethink basic client’s organizational and people issues
3. Redesign a workflow using information technology
4. Reorganize the workflow into cross-functional teams with end-to-end responsibilities 

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