Beyond Business Process Reengineering: Towards the Holonic Enterprise - Softcover

McHugh, Patrick

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0471974811 ISBN 13: 9780471974819

Publisher: Wiley, 1997

Synopsis

Internationally renowned experts, with worldwide consulting expertise, chart a dynamic new trend that promises to go beyond current thinking on B.P.R. and virtual companies. Discusses the competitive advantages of holonic systems, demonstrating what enterprises must do to become viable holonic players. Includes a significant amount of international examples.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

How is your business these days? Do the following sound familiar? Market share flat or falling? Margins being squeezed ever thinner? Increased competition from new players? Technology out-racing you? Customers wanting more than you can offer? In all businesses today the answer is - yes! For many, the solution is to focus on their core business processes - commonly known as Business Process Reengineering (BPR). Now some businesses have gone beyond BPR and are using holonic networks to respond to the rising challenges of business in the 1990s. Holonic networks give businesses the agility to rapidly change product and service capabilities to meet rapidly changing market demands, offering the following advantages:

• leverage - there is true synergy achieved by combining the best capabilities of many operations.
• speed - decision making is streamlined which shows up as improved time to market.
• flexibility - rapid change to product or service capabilities to match changing customer requirements.
• fast growth and high profits - improving customer responsiveness by 33% results in a growth rate of 300% and up to 500% more profit than competitors.
• sustainable customers - tough for competitors to wean them away.
• reduced capital requirement - shared costs and fuller use made of equipment.
• quick failure recognition - real-time operation recognizes and then fixes failure.

In this book, the authors describe how holonic networks and the virtual companies within them have been implemented in businesses as diverse as Ford, Hewlett Packard, Benetton and R Griggs, the company that makes Doc Marten shoes. Beyond Business Process Reengineering provides a thought-provoking and practical examination of business today. For everyone in business being pulled through competition, technological change and their own reengineering efforts, it provides a new and radical alternative to downsizing, restructuring, cost reduction and strategic repositioning.

About the Author:

Patrick McHugh is a Managing Partner in Coopers & Lybrand Management Consultants (C&L). His extensive international work has included advising manufacturing companies, governments and public sector on areas from competitive strategy and industrial policy to corporate restructuring and technology management. He founded the Engineering Group in the UK and the C&L International Centre for Technology and Engineering Management. He is currently responsible for developing the firm's strategic performance improvement services. Giorgio Merli is a Senior Partner in Galgano & Associati, one of Italy's largest management consulting firms. A graduate engineer with a master's degree in manufacturing management, he started his career with Philips and became an industrial manager. He has carried out several reorganizational projects in Italian and multinational companies and has been particularly involved in the implementation of Total Quality and Lean Organization strategies in Western companies. He is consultant to CEOs of important multinational companies and juror for the European Quality Award (EQFM). Merli has also published many books in the management field. William A. Wheeler III is a Partner in the C&L Management Consulting Services Group and is responsible for the National Just-In-Time (JIT) and Manufacturing Strategy practices in the USA and the International Manufacturing Strategy Center of Excellence. He has participated in and managed numerous domestic and international consulting engagements that involve the major elements of strategy and productivity improvement including, quality, engineering, and materials systems. He has won international recognition for his contributions in the field of JIT. He originated the concepts of Co-Op Contracting and BreakPoint Manufacturing Strategy, which have been adopted by major corporations throughout the world.

About this edition

• Publisher: Wiley
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0471974811
• ISBN 13: 9780471974819
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 228