Automating Business Process Reengineering

Using the Power of Visual Simulation to Improve Performance and Profit

Ever wonder why most Business Process Reengineering initiatives fail? Want to know how your organization can successfully implement Business Process Reengineering strategies to:

• Improve performance?
• Cut costs?
• Increase profit?

The answers are in:
Automating Business Process Reengineering:
Using the Power of Visual Simulation Strategies to Improve Performance and Profit

By Gregory A. Hansen
Published by: Prentice-Hall 1/97
For more information contact Bernard Goodwin: 1-201-236-7123

These powerful statements come from Gregory Hansen, author of Automating Business Process Reengineering: Simulation and Modeling Strategies to Improve Performance and Profit, who clearly and convincingly builds the case that true process "engineering" requires the same modeling and simulation common to engineering disciplines. He asks, "If thousands of hours of simulation are used to design and build cars, why isn't the same true for business? We currently use simulation in business, but not to drive business."

The author suggests that it's time business got down to business by using simulation. "In simulation you don't ask for opinions, you ask for information." Actual case success stories documented in Hansen's book show that:

• People relate better to facts than to supposition. Simulation deals with facts and helps reinforce the value of process changes, breaking down cultural barriers.
• Simulation can be used to predict how proposed changes will affect a business process.
• Simulation is a powerful mechanism for testing the investment required for change before the investment is made.
• Simulation can help overcome the negative feelings caused by previous reengineering initiatives which failed.

Automating Business Process Reengineering is the only book of its kind that tells you not only what you need to know, but shows you how to put that knowledge to work immediately. The book includes plenty of case studies that demonstrate the power of automated business process reengineering in action, highlighting bottom-line deliverables and clear-cut results. The examples are simple enough to understand, but complex enough to be challenging.

The book covers such subjects as:

• Why 83% of all companies have immature (unengineered) business processes, and what it takes to move to mature, optimized processes
• The shortcomings of tools such as flow charts and activity diagrams, and how to overcome these shortcomings with computer modeling
• How visual paradigms are used to build graphical representations of processes that can be simulated and measured using algorithmic models
• Types of simulation and how models can be used to identify business process, performance and profit improvements
• Why modeling should be used to measure the affect of change in the overall process, not just a subset of the process
• How computer simulation can accurately predict the effects of change better than pilot programs and can take into account intangible factors such as worker morale and resistance to change

A few years ago, such tools weren't available to anyone except experts in the field. Now these tools are designed for practical use. This book is meant for anyone responsible for process or profit improvement in an organization:

• CIOs, CFOs and COOs
• Executive-level Management
• Vice Presidents, Directors and Senior Managers
• Directors of Operation
• Consultants and Policy-Makers

"This is a must read for any aspiring process architect. Hansen offers a clear contrast between the change management aspects of reengineering and the science of reengineering processes."
--Tom Britton, Senior Business Consultant, Duke Power Company

"This book presents a structured approach to BPR called Computer Aided Process Reengineering (CAPRE) that offers quite enormous potential...all the way up to effecting national, regional and global change."
--Peter Quennell, President, The Change Institute

Destined to become a business bestseller, Automating Business Process Reengineering includes a demo disk of the modeling and simulation software BPR+Extend, and is available through most bookstores (ISBN 0-13-079179-2), or direct by calling Prentice-Hall, 1-800-947-7700.