Transition from Manual to IT-Based Documents Transacting Business Process: Performance Measurements System as the Key

Abstract

A medium manufacturing firm had since beginning organized itself around quality-driven transactions in information documents. This learning in documents transaction helped it in scoring large gains in productivity, in cost-cutting, and in evolving a sound performance measurement system. This set the norms of work. However globalization opened up opportunities and threats. The old system had sufficient information technology (IT) backing but it failed in motivating employees adopting a global information challenge. In order to compete internationally through differentiated products with high quality, this firm then reengineered its manufacturing. Market information substituted quality as driver of information transactions. The goal of the project was to Web-enable the firm. The IT project had to define business transactions as the unit, which would define transactions in information in object language first and subsequently as transactions in documents. Changes were then brought at three levels: the first, essential level was based on business transactions among employees supporting the information system, which in turn generated business documents. Essential-level business transactions formed as a second level cared for the nuclei of business processes and could also constitute a new performance measurement system. Browser-enabled communication proved acceptable to employees who had previous learning in information transactions. The firm gained immensely through this novel mode of IT application.