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4.2. REENGINEERING DESIGN LEVELS

In reengineering, design occurs at three levels: enterprise, project, and component. Design at the enterprise level is abstract and broad-scoped, focusing on determining the core businesses/industries and markets and customers to be served. Outcomes are the enterprise mission, vision, objectives, programs, and strategies that are described in terms of markets, customers, and products. The outcomes from the enterprise level are used to guide the decomposition and scoping at the conceptual, project level in identifying customer needs, determining business requirements and constraints, and creating a conceptual design that describes the major aspects of each component in the future business system. The outcomes from the project level are used at the detailed, component level to drive the construction of an implementable, testable detailed design. Given this reengineering methodology, design artifacts at each level can be tested for correctness and completeness, as well as repeating and deepening the design process at each level until the outcomes are satisfactory.

There is a design focus and outcome at each level of decomposition from the broad and abstract to the specific and operationalizable:


Focus Outcomes
 
Enterprise level:
1. Core business or industry Mission and vision
2. Markets and customers Business objectives, strategy, mkt. segments
 
Project level:
3. Customer needs Requirements and constraints
4. Product/service specifications Product/service functionality and value
 
Component level:
5. Process design Products and services
6. Support Components Process performance, innovation, flexibility

Establishing and/or validating the business strategy is a necessary first step; otherwise, the wrong customers, their needs, and related products and services may be selected for redesign. Part of the business strategy consists of identifying promising future markets, customer groups, and their needs that the enterprise can meet. The selection of market segments and the determination of current and future customer needs will determine what components of the business system need to be redesigned. Different customer groups will have differing needs, values, perceptions, and expectations. These varied and sometimes conflicting interests must be balanced, weighed, and negotiated. Once resolved, the bundle of needs can be translated into a set of consistent requirements and constraints.

As indicated in the business system schematic, products and services exist to meet customer needs. In turn, processes are the primary mechanism for producing and delivering products and services. Therefore, initial redesign efforts should focus on the product, service, and process. However, choices for component redesign should be dependent on the relative size of gaps between current and ideal future states, and their ease of realization, specified in terms of business requirements. Reengineering projects typically redesign of all three of these components -- a new product may also require customization and superior service, and both of these redesigns will require large changes in how the process is designed. In turn, large changes in the process will necessitate changes to most or all of the infrastructure elements.

4.3. SOURCES OF DESIGN IDEAS

External sources of design ideas include:

  • Customer needs, values, expectations, and perceptions
  • Customer complaints, solicited feedback, market intelligence
  • Competition and market products and services: functionality and features
  • Industry best practices and environmental scan
  • Domain literature and research
  • Lead customers: innovative and demanding
  • Industry user groups, seminars, conferences

Internal sources of design ideas include:

  • Strategic direction: mission, vision, concept of operations
  • Operational problems: poor quality, cost overruns, schedule and time delays
  • Formal assessments, lessons learned, process feedback
  • Performance measurements: process, results, customer, employee, supplier
  • Domain experts
  • Workforce complaints and quality of work life issues
  • Reengineering component best practice
  • Creative thinking
  • Innovative IT

4.4. CUSTOMER ANALYSIS PROCESS

The author has defined a customer analysis process that begins with identification of customers and ends with the translation of customer needs into business requirements and constraints:

  1. Define the customer groups with an interest in the reengineering project
  2. Determine needs, values, expectations, and perceptions separately for each customer group
  3. Organize customer needs around product, service, and process
  4. Prioritize customer needs
  5. Identify, negotiate, and resolve customer need conflicts
  6. Transform customer needs into business requirements and constraints

4.5. TYPES OF CUSTOMERS

  • User/beneficiary:
    • Primary customer that receives and uses product
    • External focus: cares only about value package attributes
    • Consumer also directly selects and funds product
  • Owner/Funder:
    • Entity that pays for development/delivery of product
    • Responsible for funding processes and organization
    • Balanced focus: internal on profits and costs; external perceptions
  • Regulator:
    • Entity that influences and controls profits, product features, HR practices
    • Responsible to beneficiary and workforce
    • Balanced focus: fairness to and safety of users and workforce
  • Management:
    • Controls and manages Business Systems that produce value
    • Responsible for delivering value to beneficiary and oversight
    • Balanced focus: value-added, profits, safety, compensation
  • Workforce:
    • Responsible for performing processes and producing products
    • Internal focus: Career, compensation, and work environment


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