Kelada, Joseph N., Integrating Reengineering with Total Quality Management. ASQC, Milwaukee, 1996.

According to the author, continuous improvement, has to be stopped and replaced with reengineering, if a company wants to be, and remain, competitive. However both continuous improvement and innovation (reengineering) are essential: one should innovate, then improve, innovate, then improve again, and so on and so forth (p73).

Total quality management and reengineering neither contradict nor complement each other; they are two parts of the same approach. This is well illustrated at AT&T, whose reengineering Handbook posits that BR is a fundamental component of the total quality approach (see AT&T Quality Steering Committee, Reengineering Handbook (Indianapolis, Ind.: AT&T, 1991)).

According to the author, TQM , however, is not the synonym for continuous improvement. Rather , total quality is an objective, TQM is the means to achieve it, and the techniques used for continuous improvement and reengineering are important tools in TQM technology.

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Carr, David K., and Johansson, Henry J.; Best practices in reengineering; McGraw-Hill: New York, 1995.

Best Practice 1: Recognize and articulate an "extremely compelling" need to change - without a compelling need to increase competitiveness, efforts to transform company will run up against the "who cares' syndrome (p38).

Best Practice 2: Start with and maintain executive-level support - once a top executive has intellectually accepted the need for change, his or her soul must follow. And then the leader must grab the heart, soul and intellect of every member of the executive team (p.44).

Best Practice 3: Understand the organization's "readiness to change" - It is important to get beyond "gut feel" when assessing an organization's readiness for change. It is equally important the organization's leadership get beyond their own ego in thinking that they have projected a compelling need too change and therefore the company must be ready, willing and able to change (p.49).

Best Practice 4: Communicate effectively to create buy-in. Then Communicate more - Communications is the most important tool in obtaining buy-in from employees at every level of the company for the changes that will be necessary to reengineer processes (p.51).

Best Practice 5: Create top-notch teams - The right team come to the right solutions more expeditiously than an individual (p.73).

Best Practice 6: Use a structured framework - Framework facilitates understanding and communications by breaking the effort up to recognizable pieces and by having a common language in place with which to discuss reengineering (pp.85-87).

Best Practice 7: Use consultants effectively - Consultants act as coaches, facilitators, experts, project managers and trainers who plan and oversee BPR efforts (p88).

Best Practice 8: Link goals to corporate strategy - Strategic planning activities often reveal the need for dramatic change and may even immediately pinpoint the process that need transformation (pp.103-105).

Best Practice 9: Listen to the "voice of the customer" - Obtain meaningful customer input before deciding which processes to reengineer (p.115) .

Best Practice 10: Select the right processes for reengineering - Right process self selects as you do your business strategy analysis and listen to your customers (p120).

Best Practice 11: Maintain focus: Don't try to reengineer too many processes - Because it is highly risky to make major changes in core business and key supporting processes, it is imperative that an organization's energy be tightly focused on reengineering only a few processes (pp.124-125).

Best practice 12: Maintain teams as the key vehicle for change - Once the processes to be reengineered have been chosen, it is time for BPR teams well versed in the particular processes to roll up their sleeves and go to work (p.134).

Best practice 13: Quickly come to an as-is understanding of the processes to be reengineered - allows the team to i) keep the parts of the process that is important; ii) create a migration plan; iii) know who is involved in Th. process; iv) create a common understanding for all team members; v) create a fact based performance baseline; vi) find the internal controls in the current processes (pp.137-138).

Best practice 14: Choose and use the right metrics - To see if the process is achieving the projected vision (pp.142-143).

Best practice 15: Understand the risks and develop contingency plans - To fight technical risks and cultural pushback (p160).

Best practice 16: Have plans for continuous improvement - Quality management built around the goal of raising customer satisfaction through continuous process improvement (p165).

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