Human factors in business process re-engineering

Abstract

Many organizations have implemented radical changes through business process re-engineering (BPR) in recent years. In most cases, these changes have been necessary to meet the requirements of a more competitive and global market. Rather than focus on these economic objectives, this paper describes how several organizational transformations took human dimensions into account. The literature in information technology implementation and organizational change provides some important guidelines for integrating human factors into design considerations. Furthermore, it shows that technical, technological, and human dimensions must be jointly optimized to obtain the most significant improvements in productivity. Given the significance of the changes brought in through BPR, we might assume that those having to live with these changes would be quite involved in designing and implementing them. However, four case studies and a survey of 38 projects indicate that even though human aspects are considered to be important risk factors, most BPR efforts are technically oriented. We present some possible explanations and suggest improvements to current design strategies.