A Strategic Business Improvement Model for Higher Education. Move Over TQM--Here Comes BPR

This paper discusses the emergence of a management process known as Business Process Redesign (BPR) in higher education, which is promoted as a successor to the Total Quality Management (TQM) approach that has influenced higher education management in recent years. The paper chronicles recent management changes in higher education and the emergence of the BPR model. It also reviews the process's major elements, including its underlying philosophy, theory, and its three-pronged conceptual framework of Discover, Redesign, and Realize. This framework forms the basis for selecting the appropriate change tactics and the formation of a change team to assess current conditions and generate specific redesign ideas based on the development of data which detects existing defects. The paper then reviews two case studies involving procurement practices and physical plant operation. It concludes by making suggestions for the possible implementation of BPR principles by facilities managers. (Contains 12 references.) (MDM)