An improved BPR approach for offline enabling processes : A case study on a maintaining process within the chemical industry

Business processes can be broadly classified into strategic processes, operational/value adding processes and enabling processes. There is a growing abundance of literature on the strategic and operational processes, perhaps judged to be appropriate due to their value adding importance and more tangible and sequential nature. Enabling or supporting processes have historically recieved less attention, however with increasing inter and intra networking of organisations these processes are not seen as peripheral but as integral parts of the organisation. A key enabling process is that of maintenance (in the manufacturing sector), this process is sometimes referred to as the maintaining process. In this paper a methodology involving business process re‐engineering is developed and applied to the maintaining process within the chemical industry (Du Pont‐Global). The methodology includes both self‐assessment and proactive change management. Based on the findings improvements to the methodology are suggested.