Abstract
Business process reengineering has allowed many businesses to achieve significant improvements in performance, yet it seems that the reengineering promise and progress has reached a plateau of its own and reengineering is poised to enter the second generation (Cypress 1994). The fist generation saw development of a number of methodologies that allowed the reengineering projects to follow structured paths. Although methodologies differ in details, most of thein emphasize (1) changes in organizational objectives from an internal to a customer- and market-oriented focus, usually in response to competitive pressures, (2) a corresponding reconfiguration of production methods, (3) new information technology-based systems to enable these changes, and (4) significant changes in supporting processes such as human resources (Davenport 1993; Hammer and Champy 1993; Guha, Kettinger and Teng 1994). As the next generation of reengineering efforts are undertaken some practitioners are predicting shifts from the “customer value chain” paradigm to the “wealth creation and wealth consumption” paradigm (Cypress 1994). Yet, there is not clear theoretical framework available to evaluate and compare these methodologies and choose the one best suited for reengineering projects under consideration.
Recommended Citation
Saharia, Aditya and Barron, Terence, "Is There a Theory of Reengineering?" (1994). ICIS 1994 Proceedings. 41.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/icis1994/41