Presentation on Case study of company John Deere given in book - Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution by Michael Hammer

1. BUSINESS PROCESS REENGINEERING
ONE COMPANY’S EXPERIENCE: DEERE
175 - MANISH T. PATIL

2. BUSINESS PROCESS REENGINEERING
Definition:
The fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of core business processes to achieve dramatic
improvements in critical performance measures such as quality, cost, and cycle time.
Organization
 Job skills
 Structures
 Reward
 Values
Technology
 Enabling technologies
 IS architectures
 Methods and tools
 IS organizations
Process
 Core business processes
 Value-added
 Customer-focus
 Innovation
A BPR Framework:

3. REASONS BEHIND DEERE’S REENGINEERING PROJECT:
 Suffering during mid-1980s due to Economic
Distress
 Midwest becoming Rust belt
 High pressure on Manufacturing
 Hard time for Farm sector in beginning of 1990s
due to Kansas wheat field destroyed by early
summer Hailstorm
 Sales and Profits beaten down due to both events
 To sustain, Company started doing Radical changes
in on shop floor by reducing Inventory, Levelling
activities on Shop floor, forming Manufacturing
Cells, rearranging shopfloor layout, etc.
 Reengineering was not invented till then; Company
heard about “R” term in fall of 1989 and started its
first Reengineering project in 1990

4. FIRST REENGINEERING AT INSURANCE BUSINESS:
 Deere was structured into 8 division at that time, all managed separately
 Reengineering team try to work on Reengineering at Centre of business in Agricultural Division
 Agricultural Division had too many years of History, Culture was too Entrenched and people were afraid
of magnitude of change in such big division
 So, instead of forcing division from outside, Reengineering team asked all Division to invite them
 Insurance Division was not a Primary operation in Deere
 Best to start Small, at edge of the business
 Success at small attracts more interest of centre

5. ROLE OF LEADERSHIP IN REENGINEERING
 Leadership was not involved in initial phase of reengineering
 But started getting involved after seeing success at Insurance
Division
 Main challenge for Leadership in every Reengineering project at
Deere was People’s Fear
 Dealer’s Fear about new Process – Removed by designing & playing
Monopoly-like game
 Employees resistance for New process – Made part of their Individual
Goal
 Employees fear about downsizing – Reengineering is for improving
business, not for downsizing

6. RESOURCES AND RESULTS
Reengineering at Deere had Phase wise
result
• For Insurance division – 40% of elapsed
time eliminated for Claims, another 40%
after Computarization
• Order Fulfilment – Process Changed from
“Estimate-to-Shipment” to “Estimate-to-
Cash”
Time for result was also different for
different project
• Order Fulfilment
• Largest project of Reengineering among
20-25 project undertaken by team
• Took 19 months from Diagnosis through
National implementation;
• breakneck speed for change in Deere
• Never defined Order Fulfilment so
broadly before
Dedicated Team of 6-7 people
• Act as Enablers of Reengineering
• Went for Michael Hammer’s Classes;
conducted 2-3 inhouse session per year
• Go out and work with Business team at
facility

7. LEARNINGS
 At start of reengineering, always start at Edge of the business, not
Centre
 Dedicated Team required to develop breakthrough
 Part time team cannot give breakthrough
 Needed for Improved Performance
 Involvement of Leadership is Key for success
 Leadership should initiate Reengineering
 Help people to overcome the fear of Change
 Success in small process will attract people at core of business
 Align the Objective of BPR with people to remove fear
 Focus of reengineering should always be to improve the Business
 Change is continuous process; necessary for success and sustaining
growth of Company

8. THANK YOU!!!