> ### 2.3 Business Process Reengineering and Workflow

> Traditionally, business processes have been conducted via paper handling, status meetings, and phone-tag. Among other things, this takes away time from doing real work, makes status tracking cumbersome, and reduces accountability. Studies have shown that a disproportionate amount of time is spent on information transfer. While modern technology has helped automate these activities piecemeal, there has been little research into a unifying philosophy or technology until the advent of Business Process Reengineering (BPR).

> BPR is a popular area of study, which has gained tremendous following in recent years. Simply put, BPR is concerned with the analysis and modeling of core business activities from a procedural point of view. The BPR process-oriented approach brings process specialists together to create an optimal process, which supports individual work habits. Workflow is often associated with BPR and makes for a natural and powerful implementation of BPR (though one is not required for the other).

> A Workflow Management System automates a business process and manages the sequence of activities in the process as well as human and IT resources. True workflow systems have the following features:

> · Ability for a user to define the workflow process and its activities
> · Real-time management of the activity sequence in a process
> · Ability to manage human resources and process information

> Online resources about BPR and workflow are listed at the end of Chapter 1.

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