developing a process re-engineering-oriented organizational change ...

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DEVELOPING A PROCESS RE-ENGINEERING-ORIENTED ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE EXPLORATORY SIMULATION SYSTEM (PROCESS) C.K. Chen, C.H. Tsai Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, Yuan Ze University, 135 Yuan-tung Road, ChungLi, 320, Taiwan, ROC D. S. Shiau Department of Business Administration, Hsiuping Institute of Technology, 11 Gongye Road, Dali, Taichung County, 412-80, Taiwan, ROC

Abstract In the past two decades, business process re-engineering (BPR) and organizational restructuring (OR) have been two of the most popular approaches to improving the efficiency and the effectiveness of an organization. However, a review of the relevant literature reveals that the two approaches have been studied in isolation. The theoretical gap in academic research is also reflected in practice. The present paper therefore proposes a customer-oriented and process-focused two-stage framework, entitled the ‘process reengineering-oriented organizational change exploratory simulation system’ (‘PROCESS’), to address these theoretical deficiencies. Two key concepts are introduced in this two-stage framework. The first is the ‘process module’ (PM), which indicates a set of common sequential activities that can be grouped as a subunit of a business process. The second is the ‘macro-process’ (MP), which indicates that a set of business processes have similar characteristics or functions. The two concepts serve as ‘stepping stones’ between BPR and OR. Based on these two concepts, the decision rules and the mathematical/simulation model can be developed under this two-stage framework. The paper then presents a case study to demonstrate the effectiveness of the ‘PROCESS’. Keywords: organizational change management, business process re-engineering, organizational restructuring.

1 INTRODUCTION To survive in the turbulent contemporary environment, business organizations need to adapt to external conditions. By enhancing the effectiveness and efficiency of manufacturing or service systems they hope to increase quality and flexibility to satisfy their customers’ expectations and thus deliver expected business results. To achieve these objectives, change management has become a popular approach. There are many approaches to achieving such organizational change (OC)—including business-process re-engineering (BPR), organizational restructuring (OR), total quality management (TQM), six sigma (6σ), benchmarking learning, and the ISO qualitymanagement system. Among these, BPR has received increasing interest in the past two decades. Several strategies and models have been developed for the implementation of BPR (Guha et al., 1997; Davenport and Beers, 1995; Wastell et al., 1994). However, most of the related research has concentrated on how to optimize business processes, with relatively little attention being placed on how organizational structures should be adjusted to fit the new business processes. Harvey (1995) has confirmed that organizational structure change management is always the biggest challenge in BPR implementation. Some BPR methodologies and techniques have been developed to incorporate OR. These have included group technology (GT, Groover, 1987; Burbidge, 1989 & 1991), cellar manufacturing (CM, Groover, 1987; Jones, Noble and Crowe, 1997), production flow analysis (PFA, Burbidge, 1989 & 1991), information flow analysis (IFA, Macintosh, 1997), and organizational elements model (OEM, Kaufman, 1981 & 2000). In addition, Porter (1985) proposed a systematic approach to analysis of a value chain to examine how the activities of a firm can best be grouped and organized. Gilbreath (1986) showed how to manage the project team in an organization from the

perspectives of failure symptoms, failure tendencies, failure factors, and success factors. However, in view of the complicated organizational designs of BPR and OR, and the different focuses of the methodologies, the present authors suggest that a coherent conceptual framework is needed to integrate these two approaches. It is also apparent from the literature that most of the studies of BPR and OR have focused on the social aspects of change management, rather than the technical and systematic aspects of an organization. These social aspects of change management have included leadership, organizational culture, change-project management, human-resource management, and so on (Biazo and Bernardi, 2003; Hengst and Vreede, 2004). Although some research has investigated the technical and systematic aspects of change management (Love, Gunasekaran and Li, 1998; Jang, 2003), no practical model incorporating the technical aspects of an organization has yet been developed. In this paper, a two-stage framework is proposed to address these deficiencies in the literature, which is entitled the ‘process re-engineering-oriented organizational-change exploratory simulation system’ (‘PROCESS’). It is a customer-oriented and process-focused framework that simultaneously takes into account the needs of both BPR and OR. In proposing this two-stage framework, the paper aims to achieve the following objectives: (i) to investigate the theoretical relationship between BPR and OR; and (ii) to propose a change-management model that is both technical and holistic to facilitate organizational change through BPR and OR. 2

RESEARCH FRAMEWORK

To address the issue of incorporating business process reengineering (BPR) and organizational restructuring (OR) in a single model, a two-stage framework is suggested—

referred to as a ‘process re-engineering-oriented organizational change exploratory simulation system’ (‘PROCESS’). The conceptual framework of the PROCESS is shown in Figure 1. On the left side are the customer needs at the entry of the manufacturing or service order; these represent the trigger (input) of the activities in an organization. On the right side of the diagram, customer satisfaction with services and the effectiveness of the production system represent the outcomes (output). To achieve customer satisfaction with a product or a service, a series of activities must be effectively performed; this series of activities is called a ‘business process’. The persons performing these tasks could be from the same department or from different departments of the organization. In the central part of the diagram, the process modules (PMs) first facilitate the required changes from the existing business process (EBPs) to the proposed business process (PBPs). The ‘macro processes’ (MPs) then facilitate the required changes from the PBPs to a new organizational structure (OS). The two-stage PROCESS model depicted in Figure 1 is a customer-oriented and process-focused framework that simultaneously takes into account the needs of BPR and OR. The model is discussed in greater detail below. 2.1 Development of the process module The ‘process module’ (PM) is defined as a set of common sequential activities that can be grouped as a subunit of a business process. An ‘activity’ is the basic unit of a business process. Such an activity might be an ‘operation’, an ‘inspection’, ‘transportation’, or ‘storage’. Figure 2 presents the conceptual framework for developing these PMs. As shown in Figure 2, two cases can be taken into account in developing a PM. The first case is that the set of common sequential activities is found within an existing business process—such as A6, A1, A2, and A3 being in the same sequence in both BP1 and BP2; they are

therefore grouped to form PM1. The other case is that the set of common sequential activities is found across different business processes—such as A5, A7, and A4 being grouped as PM2. Work analysis and simplification of PM1 and PM2 are then conducted to improve efficiency. Based on these simplified PMs, customer-oriented business processes are developed. Various mathematical or simulation models can be developed in this stage of organizational change. Techniques or methodologies that can be used as alternatives for developing PMs include group technology (GT), cellular manufacturing (CM), production flow analysis (PFA), and information flow analysis (IFA). GT is a manufacturing philosophy in which similar parts are identified and grouped together to take advantage of their similarities in manufacturing and design (Groover, 1987). CM is a group of processes designed to make a ‘family’ of parts in a flexible way (Black, 1991); it is sometimes used to describe the operations of a GT machine cell (Groover, 1987). PFA and IFA are techniques for finding both GT groups and their associated ‘families’ by analyzing the information in component process routes that identify the operations needed to make each part and the machines to be used for each operation (Burbidge, 1989; Macintosh, 1997). In this stage of PM development, it is important to group the ‘activity’ appropriately. The objective of this stage is to decompose the existing processes and to come up with the proposed business process. There are advantages in grouping those common sequential activities in a PM. These advantages include: (i) It can shorten the time for developing a business process. The idea comes from the use of container in the ocean/air cargo transportation. (ii) It can increase efficiency by simplifying or rationalizing a business process. An industrial engineer is able to save time by analyzing the whole business process contained within a frequently used business PM. (iii) Because the efficiency of a business process has been taken into account in the development of PMs, a firm is then able concentrate its efforts on customer orientation when a business process is re-engineered.

O r g a n iz a tio n a l s tr u c tu r e (O S ) OS1

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F ig u r e 1 C o n c e p tu a l fr a m e w o r k o f P R O C E S S

Customer satisfaction; Effectiveness of a production system

Customer needs; Entry of the manufacturing or service order

M a c ro -p ro c e s s (M P )

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P r o c e s s m o d u le (P M )

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E x is tin g b u s in e s s p r o c e s s (E B P ) BP1

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F ig u r e 2 D e v e lo p m e n t o f p r o c e s s m o d u le

M a c ro -p ro c e s s (M P )

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P r o p o s e d b u s in e s s p r o c e s s ( P B P ) BP1

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F ig u r e 3 D e v e lo p m e n t o f m a c r o - p r o c e s s

2.2 Development of the macro-process The ‘macro-process’ (MP) is defined as a set of business processes that have similar characteristics. The similar characteristics can be defined in terms of: (i) organizational functions; or (ii) certain products. If defined in terms of organizational functions, the macro-process might be termed a ‘product-development MP’, a ‘product-design MP’, a ‘procurement MP’, a ‘production/manufacturing MP’, a ‘sales/marketing MP’, and so on. If defined in terms of

products, the macro-processes are described in terms of different product series—such as ‘product series A’, ‘product series B’, ‘product series C’, and so on. Figure 3 presents the conceptual framework for developing these macro-processes (MPs). As shown in Figure 3, certain business processes (BP1, BP2, … BPi) have similar characteristics, such as a set of similar manufacturing processes among different products; they are therefore grouped to form a macro-process (designated MPa). In other cases, these business processes could share other

characteristics—such as a set of similar sales-service processes among different products, or different geographical areas, or different customer groups. Depending on the specific characteristics of the business processes in a given organization, a mathematical optimization or simulation model can be developed to identify the appropriate MPs. Because the function of the MPs is to serve as a stepping stone between PBP and the new OS, the development of these MPs is thus treated as preparation for organizational restructuring. In developing these MPs, the most important objectives to be considered are: (i) the efficiency of a production or a service system; and (ii) the focus of the customer satisfaction. To this purpose, it is suggested to use the historical manufacturing or service order data to respond to the needs of customers and the external environment rather than using static data regarding business processes. Based on the descriptions of MP, various mathematical or simulation models can be developed to facilitate the elicitation of a new organization structure. The methods used for eliciting MPs can be either quantitative (such as mathematical optimization, heuristic optimization, simulation, and statistical analysis) or nonquantitative (such as nominal group techniques, dialectic inquiry, devil’s advocate, and quality-improvement methods). Several methodologies and models can be utilized in the development of MP. For example, the construction of a value chain, which was proposed by Porter (1985), is a systematic way of examining all the activities that a firm performs and how they interact in analyzing the source of competitive advantage. The organizational elements model, which was proposed by Kaufman (1981, 2000), can be used to determine and diagnose organizational needs by examining the performance of an organization from three levels of results and two types of means. The classification of business processes and the types of organizational structure, which were presented by Gilbreath (1986), can also be used in this stage of MP development.

existing 12 workstations, seven major components in the manufacture of a missile were identified: (i) missile armaments; (ii) missile electronics; (iii) motor part 1; (iv) motor part 2; (v) cruise control; (vi) front-end-assembly; and (vii) tail-end assembly. Problems in existing system

3 A CASE STUDY To demonstrate how the two-stage PROCESS framework is implemented, a case study is presented. The subject of this case study was a government missile-manufacturing division in Taiwan. This division planned to launch organizational change, including manufacturing process reengineering and organizational restructuring. The case is presented in the following order: (i) description of the existing production system; (ii) implementation of the proposed PROCESS (including the development of MPs, PMs, and OR); and (iii) the settings of the simulation model and the performance evaluation.

Development of PMs and proposed manufacturing process

3.1 Description of existing production system Existing system Missile production is based on small orders of various types of missile. A mass-production system is therefore not suitable, and a ‘job-shop’ production system (based on workstations) was therefore in existence. A workstation consisted of a group of machines and the necessary manufacturing processes for missile production. There are 12 workstations of the existing production system. There were more than 20 functional departments in this missileproducing division, and the workstations belonged to various departments of the division. The manufacturing machines included machines for turning, milling, grinding, drilling, casting, polishing, lapping, welding, soldering, heat treatment, hot working, cold working, ultrasonic machining (USM), electrical discharge machining (EDM), and electro arc treatments. Apart from these manufacturing processes, workstations 11 and 12 were reserved for handling and transport of materials and documents. On the basis of the

With a view to enhancing the effectiveness of the production system, a task force was set up to identify potential areas for improvement. Two problems in particular were identified in the existing production system. The first problem revealed a need for manufacturingprocess re-engineering. Changes in the types of orders that had been received in the past few years had led to some of the workstations lying idle while others were busy. This had led to bottlenecks, with work-in-process (WIP) waiting at certain points in the production line. An urgent issue for the division was therefore how to re-engineer the manufacturing process to increase machine utilization and decrease production time. The second problem revealed a need for organizational restructuring. Apart from the occurrence of bottlenecks and idle machines in the manufacturing process, it was also discovered that the movement of WIP across different departments required excessive material- and document-handling. To address the question of manufacturing process re-engineering and to reduce material-handling and document-handling, it was apparent that organizational restructuring was required. Taken together, these two problems indicated a need for both BPR and OR. The PROCESS framework was therefore applied to address these requirements simultaneously. To simplify the demonstration of the twostage PROCESS, the ‘as-is’ configuration strategy is employed. According to this configuration, the seven major components in the manufacture of a missile are retained; that is, no new major component is added in the proposed manufacturing process. And the sophisticated quantitative methodologies are also not adapted in this case study. 3.2 Implementation of PROCESS model To establish the PMs in this case, an examination was made of the common sequential manufacturing activities among the seven major components of the manufacturing process. Four illustrative PMs are described in this case study, although this is not an exhaustive list of all possible PMs for the seven major components. The four illustrative PMs were designated as PM1, PM2, PM3, and PM4. After each PM had been grouped, a new workstation was then set up. The development of these PMs had two significant benefits: (i) reduction in material- and document-handling to a minimum level at the new workstation; and (ii) work simplification and process re-engineering to improve the effectiveness of the production system. • PM1: PM1 was formed by grouping the common sequential manufacturing activities of A1, A2, and A9. • PM2: PM 2 was formed by grouping A7, A8, and A10. • PM3: PM3 was formed by grouping A3 and A4. • PM4: PM4 was formed by grouping A5 and A6. Development of MPs and proposed organizational structure To develop the MPs, the manufacturing processes of the seven major components were examined. Five MPs were then proposed as follows. •　MP1: MP1 was formed by grouping major components a and b, which were both related to missile armaments. •　MP2: MP2 was formed by grouping major components c and d, which were both related to motor parts.

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•　MP3 and MP4: Major component e was decomposed to form MP 3 and MP4; MP3 was the electronic part of cruise control, whereas MP4 was the mechanical part of cruise control. •　MP5: MP5 was formed by grouping major components f and g, which were both related to missile assembly. Having developed the PMs and MPs, a three-department organization was then proposed. The three departments were designated as OS1, OS2, and OS3. • OS1: MP1 was proposed as the first department (OS1) because of its independence from the manufacturing activities of other MPs. • OS2: OS2 was formed by grouping MP2 and MP3 in view of the similarity of these two MPs as part of the electronic-manufacturing process. • OS3: OS3 was formed by grouping MP4 and MP5— both of which were concerned with the final assembly. 3.3 Performance evaluation

average machine utilization for the ten workstations (workstations 1–10) of the existing production was 0.075, whereas it increased to 0.238 in the proposed production system. Similarly, in the case of the 3000-hours manufacturing duration, the average machine utilization for the ten workstations increased from 0.077 to 0.238. The reduction of the process time and the improvement of machine utilization can be attributed to the following reasons. First, WIP transportation time and documenthandling were reduced to the minimum level by the development of PMs, MPs, and OR. Secondly, as a result of manufacturing process re-engineering, the manufacturing process in the proposed production system became smoother than in the existing production system. Thus the phenomena of bottlenecks and idle workstations were significantly reduced. According to the simulation report, the amount of WIP in the production system was significantly reduced (by 23%) and the output of the final product was significantly increased (by about 150% in both the 2000-hours duration of manufacturing and the 3000hours duration).

Settings of simulation model To evaluate the performance of this implementation of the PROCESS, a simulation analysis was conducted to compare the performance of the proposed system with the existing production system. The simulation software ARENA was used for this performance evaluation, and two indicators were used to evaluate the respective performances. The first was machine utilization at each workstation; the second was a process time for the seven major components of the manufacturing process. The input information of the simulation model included: (i) the manufacturing process of the existing and the proposed production systems; (ii) the process time of each workstation; and (iii) the entry of order. The input information for the manufacturing process in the proposed production system is the same as in the existing proposed production system—except for the time for documenthandling and the time for material-handling. The time for material-handling is set as zero for the workstations that have been grouped. Rather than being set as multiple times in the existing production system, the time of document-handling is set as only once for the workstations that have been grouped. The input information for the process time of each workstation is taken to be a triangular distribution with the values of: (i) the shortest time; (ii) the average time; and (iii) the longest time. For example, the WIP transportation time for each move between workstations was set at 0.8 hours, 2.5 hours, and 4.5 hours, and the time for handling each document was set at 0.5 hours, 2.3 hours, and 4.2 hours. The manufacturing order of certain major component was randomly launched by the simulation model as the input information for the entry of order. The entry of the manufacturing order was taken as an exponential distribution with a mean of 5 hours. Results Using the simulation model described above, 30 runs of 2000-hours manufacturing duration and 3000-hours manufacturing duration were conducted to examine the performance of the existing production system and the proposed production system. The total process time for the seven major components in the existing production system was 9184 hours, whereas it was only 7181 hours in the proposed production system. This represented a 21.8% reduction in total process time [(9184 hrs – 7181 hrs)/9184 hrs]. In the case of the 3000-hours manufacturing duration, a 22.8% reduction in total process time was realized [(12203 hrs – 9425 hrs)/12203 hrs]. The other indicator, that of machine utilization, was also significantly improved. In the case of the 2000-hours manufacturing duration, the

4

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

The case study shows that the performance of the proposed production system was significantly better than the existing system. However, this does not represent an exhaustive examination of the existing production system; it is merely a specific example of the potential application of the two-stage PROCESS framework. As noted above in the presentation of the PROCESS, several quantitative techniques (including mathematical optimization, heuristic optimization, statistical analysis, and so on) can be used in developing the MPs, PMs, and OR. However, no quantitative technique was employed in the case study presented here (apart from the mathematical analysis of the simulation used to evaluate performance). The reason for no employing mathematical techniques in this case study was to that certain implications of the PROCESS need to be investigated before deploying a sophisticated quantitative model. These include the following questions: • What are the advantages of process re-engineering and organizational restructuring being taken into account simultaneously? • Why does organizational change have to be launched initially from process re-engineering, with organizational restructuring then following? • What are the advantages of employing the two stepping stones, MP and PM, in organizational change? 4.1 BPR and OR being taken into account simultaneously In simple terms, both business processes and organizational structures exist to regulate the behaviour of people during the production of goods and services. Although business processes and organizational structures are treated as distinct subject areas for the purposes of research, they exist concurrently in an organization. The present study contends that they should therefore be considered simultaneously for the purpose of maximizing the advantages of the organizational change. The proposed two-stage PROCESS framework deals with these two subjects by employing the mechanisms of the PM and the MP. The results of this case study have revealed that it is both feasible and necessary to consider BPR and OR simultaneously. The advantages include: (i) an increase in product output; (ii) a reduction in process time; (iii) an improvement in machine utilization; and (iv) the elimination of WIP.

any organizational change and process re-engineering. The inclusion of the PMs and MPs is thus helpful in meeting customers’ needs.

4.2 Launching BPR before OR Although the above discussion suggests that several advantages can be derived from the implementation of BPR and OR simultaneously, the question arises as to how it really works in practice. Two approaches are likely considered in the implementation of the two tasks. The first approach is the change initiates from process reengineering then organizational restructuring being followed. The other approach is the change initiates from organizational restructuring then process re-engineering being followed. Based on the real situation happened in the practical arena, it is usually found that only process reengineering is implemented in the first approach, however organizational restructuring is not followed anymore. On the other hand, it is usually found that despite process reengineering does be launched by following organizational restructure in the second approach, however organizational restructuring is always the center of the change. To overcome these weaknesses in change management, the two-stage PROCESS framework is proposed. This is a process re-engineering-oriented organizational change model that is designed to ensure that any change that is initiated from a combination of process re-engineering and organizational restructuring really does eventuate. In the case study described here, process re-engineering was launched on the basis of the development of the PMs, and the development of MPs and the proposal for OR then followed. The case study presented above did demonstrate the steps involved in the proposed organizational structure, and how these were derived from the rearrangement of the manufacturing activities. 4.3 Employing MPs and PMs in organizational change A crucial feature of the proposed model was the incorporation of the two stepping stones (MPs and PMs) to facilitate organizational change. The case study presented here has provided evidence that the proposed production system was significantly improved by the deployment of the PMs and MPs. However, if the improvements derived from BPR and OR are examined separately, it is interesting to note that the advantages derived from OR were significantly larger in this case than those derived from BPR. For example, based on the output of the simulation analysis, it is apparent that the reduction of total process time derived from OR was 17.1% [(11506 hrs – 9425 hrs)/12203 hrs], whereas that derived from BPR was only 5.7% [(12203 hrs – 11506 hrs)/12203 hrs]. This means that the reduction of total process time derived from OR was approximately three times as great as that from BPR. Similar findings were apparent in machine utilization. The improvement of machine utility derived from OR was 228.0% [(0.249 – 0.078)/0.075], whereas that derived from BPR was only 4.0% [(0.078 – 0.075)/0.075]. Apart from the advantages already discussed above, the two stepping stones under the two-stage PROCESS framework in organizational change management also provided the following benefits. •

They provided a creative means of fusing BPR and OR, and ensuring that these two changes were implemented smoothly.

•

They provided a flexible means of implementing organizational change by allowing for a variety of analytic methods (including quantitative methods and non-quantitative methods) to be chosen to effect changes in BPR and OR. They also provided flexibility in choosing appropriate analytic methods between BPR and OR.

•

They allowed for the content of organizational change to meet customers’ needs. In this regard, it is important to note that the proposed model takes into account historical order data from customers in implementing

5 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This study was funded by the National Science Council, Republic of China (Taiwan) (NSC 94-2213-E-007-028). 6 REFERENCES [1] Biazo, S. and Bernardi, G., Process management practices and quality systems standards: risks and opportunities of the new ISO 9001 certification. Bus. Proc. Manage. J., 2003, 9,149–169. [2] Burbidge, J.L., Production Flow Analysis, 1989 (Clarendon: Oxford). [3] Burbidge, J.L., Production flow analysis for planning group technology. J. Oper. Manage., 1991, 10, 5–27. [4]

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