BPR Implementation at Honeywell

A Case Study
Presentation

Summary
Global competition is driving organizations to become leaner and more streamlined. Many organizations have turned to business process reengineering (BPR) as a means to radically change the way they conduct business. We thereby embark on a case study to deeply explore one organizations experiences with radical change for the purpose of uncovering how they achieved success.

The organization to be examined/under discussed is Honeywell Inc. in Phoenix, Arizona.

BPR- Business Process Reengineering

Business process reengineering (BPR) is the analysis and redesign of workflow within and between an organization. Radically change the way of business
Aims at Eliminating paper-intensive, bureaucratic task reducing costs significantly improving product/service quality

Common problems with BPR

Desire to change not strong enough
Process under review too big or too small Reliability on existing process too strong The costs of the change seem too large BPR isolated activity not aligned to the business objectives

Honeywell Starts with

In year 1989, Honeywell management startsWCM program-World Class Manufacturing program Three goals: Defect reduction, Short-cycle production, and Materials management.

Steps taken
System-wide view of the plant. Supported a focused-factory environment. Teams of multi-skilled workers were charged with building entire products or modules from start to finish. In 1990, entire plant went through intensive six hour session.

Steps taken
To support factory focused paradigm all salaried workforce was evaluated on pay for performance basis.

Manufacturing was moved to a handsomely landscaped site. Factory focused paradigm= TotalPlant.

An Elephant story

The moral of the story is each blind mans perception is based completely on his individual perception rather than on the reality of the situation.

HoneyWell s TotalPlant
Based on four major principle Process Mapping Fail Safing Team work Communication
Every team member must be educated in all four of the principles and empowered to use what they have learned to solve business and manufacturing process problems.

Process Mapping

Process mapping is a tool that allows one to model the flow of any business process in a graphical form. How the process actually works across functional boundaries. Enables all employees to see how the business process actually works and how it can be changed to be more effective.

 The training philosophy at Honeywell focuses on educating employees about the importance of total customer satisfaction and world-class manufacturing. Process thinking helps to justify overall results whereas functional thinking concentrates only on individual performance, not enterprise performance

Fail Safing
It is a method to identify a defect, analyze it to understand its root cause, and then develop a solution that will prevent that defect from occurring again Fail-safing guarantees that a process will be defectfree. The PDCA (plan, do, check, act) cycle offers a road map to help teams work together to prevent errors from occurring 100 percent of the time.

Teamwork & Effective Communication

The manufacturing vision creates the first step toward a new work environment that fosters teamwork. It proposes that the workforce take ownership for the success of the overall business Communication of the TotalPlantTM vision is paramount to success.

Information Technology
Every IT system is aligned with manufacturing otherwise it is not value-added. It produces automation and control devices that must meet stringent levels of quality because its customers will accept nothing less. The role of the worker is that of monitoring the devices to make sure they are performing within strict tolerances. The IT department has made great strides to align its services with the needs of the BPR

SWOT
Strengths
HoneyWell Corporation had strong market position and very rigid and rugged business process. Top management uses the conceptual methodology like WCM and TotalPlant management for the implementation of BPR Main focused on the company oriented goal rather than individual or subsystem goals Execution

Weaknesses
Work teams were based on Piecemeal or event type of work rather than process White spaces- are gaps between different links in the internal-supply chain Lack of authority to make decisions where the work was actually being done

Opportunity
HoneyWell can implement this kind of BPR to its all the group companies.
They can build the trust in the employee as well as with customer. Changes in the process can be carried out from the bottom level also, if it is difficult to implement it from top to bottom.

Customer satisfaction and company environment can be improved with BPR

Threats
Its very difficult to handle the most flexible element in the organisation i.e. peoples behaviour Improper training and development program can lead to bad results for the organisation as an output of the BPR implementation. Vision statement may vary from top management to the bottom level workers. Behavioural change is the most difficult type of change.

Lessons form this Case

People are the key enablers of change People need a systematic methodology to map processes Management attitude and behaviour can squash projects Bottom-up or empowered implementation BPR must be business-driven and continuous Execution is the real difference between success and failure

Conclusion
Execution separates the HoneyWell from other companies Change is a fundamental aspect of BPR Support from the top management is critical but actual implementation should be carried out from the bottom-up Top management needs to convey to its people that BPR is not being used to replace workers, but to improve quality, reduce cycle time, and create value for customers

Questions