A WEB-BASED BUSINESS PROCESS REENGINEERING CASE TOOL FOR As-Is PROCESSES

Abstract

Business Process Reengineering (BPR) is defined as a strategic commitment by management to revise priorities and redesign business processes to gain significant improvements in key areas of performance such as service, quality, cost, and speed. The popularity of BPR created a unique niche for consulting, training, tools and techniques. The principle aim of this study is to analyze and compare existing BPR case tools (which are standalone) and ultimately develop a prototype Web-based Business Process Reengineering Case Tool for As-Is Processes which is targeted to small and medium size organizations. The proposed case tool is practical, straightforward, easy to learn, easy to use and can be shared with others. This study has been undertaken with the specific objectives of understanding and comparing the existing BPR case tools, such as SmartDraw, BONAPART and Websphere Business Modeler. A web-based BPR case tool called BPR4U, which captures and analyses As-Is processes online was developed by using prototype methodology. It was developed in order to have 24 hours access, seven days a week, so that the system could be used from anywhere enhancing collaboration. More importantly it is a great solution for small and medium organizations for getting an inexpensive and uncomplicated BPR tool for their use. The proposed web-based BPR tool is only concerned with mapping As-Is processes. The open source programming language PHP is used to create the tool.