The document describes a case study presentation on business process reengineering (BPR) at Precision Materials Inc. It identifies key objectives of the BPR project which were to reduce order cycle times, eliminate errors, and provide timely order status updates. Cross-functional teams were formed to redesign processes by eliminating unnecessary steps, increasing speed and quality, and completing steps simultaneously. The role of information technology was also highlighted, which enabled online order approval and inventory checks, intercepted errors, and reduced cycle times.

1. BPR CASE STUDY PRESENTATION
SUBMITTED BY:
ASHISH RATHORE(09)
ARUNIM DAS(05)

2. Case study: Precision material Inc.
1)IN THE “PRECISION MATERIALS” SITUATION, HOW WERE THE OBJECTIVES OF
BPR IDENTIFIED?
OBJECTIVES OF BPR ARE IDENTIFIED BY DETERMINING THE CUSTOMERS
EXPECTATION. BASED ON THIS IT IS SET AND COMMUNICATED TO ALL THE
INVOLVED PARTIES .
THROUGH A CUSTOMER SATISFACTION SURVEY, PRECISION MATERIALS
IDENTIFIED THREE AREAS THAT NEEDS TO BE IMPROVED:
• REDUCE ORDER RECEIPT –TO-SHIPMENT CYCLE TIMES
• ELIMINATE ORDER-PROCESSING ERRORS
PROVIDE MORE TIMELY ORDER STATUS INFORMATION

3. 2)What were the generic ways that were identified that the cross functional teams could
use to redesign the process?
Existing process owner (those affected by potential change )are encouraged to build
cross functional teams that looks for ways to:
Eliminate unnecessary steps
Increase the quality and speed of specific steps in the process
Complete multiple steps simultaneously .
Building cross-functional teams to complete this analysis is critical for achieving superior
results . Success depends on team work that develop communication across each of the
functions involved in the process .
3)What is benchmarking? How can it be used in BPR?
 Benchmarking is the process of comparing one's business processes
and performance metrics to industry bests or best practices from other companies.

4. 4)What were the internal symptoms of the gaps in customer satisfaction that were
identified? expectation
Whether the customer for a process are internal or external to the company, its
imperative to make it to your first priority to understand the expectations of your
customers and where your existing meeting process falls short of meeting those
requirements.
Building on this understanding ,specific goals for a process reengineering effort must
set and communicated to all involved parties. Through a customer satisfaction
survey, precision materials
Identified three areas that needed improvement .These were then translated into
companies performance improvement goals:
Reduce order receipt-to-shipment cycle times.
Eliminate order-processing errors.
Provide more timely order status information.

5. This below graph show how internal process improvement is effectively
combined with external benchmarking. Internal process-improvement
teams can accelerate the organisations movement down the curve .
However external benchmarking offers the ability to adopt an entirely new
process technology and actually shifts the experience curve down .

6. 5)What role was played by IT in the reengineered process?
 As we all know that IT is an enabler and thus
 it enables sales rep. to online approve capabilities of inventory and credit
approval;
 eliminated the number of functions each order(reducing the possibilities of
making mistakes);
 intercepted errors almost immediately,
 nearly eliminating time delays and rework costs.
 Results of using IT:
 Order Reciept-to-warehouse
 Cycle time = instantaneous and percentage of order handled without error is
95%.
SHOWN IN FIG. HOW WITH THE PROCESS GET REENGINEERED AFTER ENABLING IT
WITH IT:

7. Sales rep enters
order into laptop
computer
System checks for
entry error
System checks Inventory
System checks
customer credit
Bill of material sent to
warehouse
Invoice with delivery status
printed and given to
customer

8. Reengineering and
Cultural
Transformation at
Arizona Public
Service

9. What environmental forces were
affecting APS?
 The major factors which were affecting APS were:
1. Reduce the emissions of harmful gases such as sulphur dioxide and
carbon dioxide as demanded by the Government.
2. The disposal of nuclear waste and public concern about safety of
nuclear generators.
3. Health risks posed by electromagnetic fields.
4. Reducing the transmission of electric utilities power and cost per
kilowatt/hour.
5. Reducing the wastes without affecting the production rates.

10. In what ways did they motivate
change?
 The first motivation technique was to change the vision of the
company placing APS as one of the top five utility companies by
1995 and adopting the mantra of “Top 5 by 95” as its slogan
 The second motivation technique was to was to communicate the
need of change individually to the employees.
 The third technique was the focus program which included
increased cooperation among the departments and increased
understanding among employees. De Michele gave a platform to
provide more empowerment to the employees which motivated
employees

11. What were the three critical areas of
change in APS’s change strategy? Describe
how each was approached
 The first critical area of change was in APS’s change strategy was
1. Large no. of employees: Reducing the no. of employees would
decrease the costs quickly and also APS was overstaffed. 1,150
employees were fired and two officers were eliminated after the
change strategy.
2. Lack of Goal: Before change APS needed a tangible goal for
restructuring so that employees could focus on the initiative’s positive
outcome. For that the vision of the company was changed placing
APS as one of the top five utility companies by 1995 and adopting the
mantra of “Top 5 by 95” as its slogan.
3. Relook at the existing positions of the company: Whether all
employees were motivated and working and whether all the position
in the company were important or not. For that DI Michele established
job review committees to evaluate

12. What business objectives and
measures of success does/should
APS use? The business objective of APS is measured by:
 1. To be top 5 organization in USA by 1995.
 2. To achieve Overall customer satisfaction. It is measured by
independent customer survey.
 3. Decrease in cost per kilowatt from 9 to 7 cents to eliminate the
planned rate increase.
 4. Reduce the no. of employees from 9000 to 6000 to decrease the
costs of running of the organization.

13. How far Hammer & Chamby BPR
methodology principles and approach
you see in this case study?
 There is a fundamental and radical change in the reengineering
process of the APS organization in the approach adopted by the
company such as motivating the employees, changing the vision
and reducing the costs of running the organization and to achieve
the overall customer satisfaction.