BPR IN GENERAL MOTORS
Case Studies - BPR in Poland
The first ever Business Process Reengineering (BPR) project in the formerly communist countries of eastern Europe was completed on October 28th, 1994 by Wizdom Polska, the Polish subsidiary company of Wizdom Systems, Inc. Wizdom has once again taken BPR to new frontiers, achieving unprecedented results in the massive task of Reengineering a company laden with the residuals of 50 years of central planning.
The company, Stomil Sanok S.A., is a manufacturer of rubber injected moulded products, primarily for the automotive industry, (" Sto" means I 00 in Polish, and 'mil" means miles). Stomil is tucked away in Sanok, a beautiful mountainous region of southeastern Poland near the Ukrainian and Slovakian borders. Through radical downsizing, Stomil has reduced its workforce from 6,000 people in 1989, to 2500 employees today. Formerly 100% state-owned, Stomil was purchased by the U.S.owned Polish American Enterprise Fund in 1990. The $350 million dollar equity investment fund was set up by President Bush and the U.S. Congress to jump start the Polish economy soon after the fall of communism in 1989. Since its privatization, Stomil has attained phenomenal growth, increasing sales by an average of 25% a year through a very aggressive quality program coupled with a strong marketing push into western Europe and, as is typical in Poland, by utilizing an inexpensive, highly educated workforce.
What most distinguishes Stomil from other companies in Poland that are struggling to meet the challenges of surviving the new free market, is its openness to new ideas and technologies. Stomil was quick to realize that its management needed to understand its processes and what it was doing, before it could implement the radical change needed to be more efficient. Because the required changes were so broad and fundamental, Stomil's management needed to make decisions on where to apply its resources for implementing change. Although this
The first ever Business Process Reengineering (BPR) project in the formerly communist countries of eastern Europe was completed on October 28th, 1994 by Wizdom Polska, the Polish subsidiary company of Wizdom Systems, Inc. Wizdom has once again taken BPR to new frontiers, achieving unprecedented results in the massive task of Reengineering a company laden with the residuals of 50 years of central planning.
The company, Stomil Sanok S.A., is a manufacturer of rubber injected moulded products, primarily for the automotive industry, (" Sto" means I 00 in Polish, and 'mil" means miles). Stomil is tucked away in Sanok, a beautiful mountainous region of southeastern Poland near the Ukrainian and Slovakian borders. Through radical downsizing, Stomil has reduced its workforce from 6,000 people in 1989, to 2500 employees today. Formerly 100% state-owned, Stomil was purchased by the U.S.owned Polish American Enterprise Fund in 1990. The $350 million dollar equity investment fund was set up by President Bush and the U.S. Congress to jump start the Polish economy soon after the fall of communism in 1989. Since its privatization, Stomil has attained phenomenal growth, increasing sales by an average of 25% a year through a very aggressive quality program coupled with a strong marketing push into western Europe and, as is typical in Poland, by utilizing an inexpensive, highly educated workforce.
What most distinguishes Stomil from other companies in Poland that are struggling to meet the challenges of surviving the new free market, is its openness to new ideas and technologies. Stomil was quick to realize that its management needed to understand its processes and what it was doing, before it could implement the radical change needed to be more efficient. Because the required changes were so broad and fundamental, Stomil's management needed to make decisions on where to apply its resources for implementing change. Although this