Supporting business process redesign using cognitive maps

Abstract

Turbulent changes and competitive pressures have forced organizations to constantly change. Business process redesign (BPR) has been widely adopted as an organizational change method in the 1990s. Although BPR projects provide the possibility of dramatic performance improvement, many organizations have encountered serious problems due to the lack of commitment to such projects and the difficulty of systematic targeting of critical processes. By identifying the cause-effect relationships within an organization, we try to address these issues. We propose a cognitive map based method, called two-phase cognitive modeling (TCM), to help organizational members identify potential organizational conflicts, capture core business activities, and suggest ways to support the necessary organizational change. To apply the method in the real world context, we developed a prototype modeling tool, called two-phase cognitive modeling facility (TCMF). Working procedures of the TCM method and TCMF features are illustrated with their application to the real BPR project of a dairy company. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.