Exploring expert system success factors for business process reengineering


Ž .J. Eng. Technol. Manage. 15 1998 179–199

Exploring expert system success factors for
business process reengineering

Youngohc Yoon a, Tor Guimaraes b,), Aaron Clevenson c
a

Department of Information Systems, Virginia Commonwealth UniÕersity, Richmond, VA 23284-4000, USA
b

J.E. Owen Chair of Excellence, Tennessee Technological UniÕersity, CookeÕille, TN 38505, USA
c

E.I. DuPont de Nemours, One Kingwood Place, Suite 215, Kingwood, TX 77339, USA

Abstract

Ž .Business process reengineering BPR has become the buzzword representing dramatic changes
to the business processes of organizations trying to quickly preempt or react to market opportuni-
ties and competition. Much of the changes are enabled by computer-based technology such as

Ž .expert systems ES providing a unique opportunity to study significant implementations of the
technology within a relatively short time. Eight ES implementation success factors proposed in the
literature were empirically tested in this study in terms of their direct and indirect importance to
the benefits from using ES in BPR. Sixty-two ES applications within E.I. Dupont de Nemours
dealing with business process changes significant enough to be called BPR were used. Despite the
relatively small sample size, four of the eight success factors were corroborated: user satisfaction
with the ES, the difficulty of the business problem addressed, the degree of user involvement in
the ES implementation process, and characteristics of the ES shells. q 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.
All rights reserved.

Ž .Keywords: Expert systems; Knowledge-based systems KBS ; Business process reengineering; Benefits; ES
success factors

1. Introduction

Ž .An expert system ES is a computer system employing expert knowledge to attain
high levels of performance in solving the problems within a specific domain area. By
encapsulating expert knowledge and experience, ES enables organizations to support

) Corresponding author. Tel.: q1-615-372-3385; fax: q1-615-372-6249; e-mail: tg5596@tntech.edu.

0923-4748r98r$19.00 q 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
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( )Y. Yoon et al.r J. Eng. Technol. Manage. 15 1998 179–199180

important decision making and improve organization productivity. Today, ES have
demonstrated their potential, gained credibility, and are being widely used to solve a

Žvariety of business problems in industry and government Hayes-Roth and Jacobstein,
.1994 . Due to its capability to effectively improve the way an organization does

business, many ES applications have been used to change a variety of business processes
ŽAcorn and Walden, 1993; Hamscher, 1994a; Lazarus et al., 1993; McManus and

.Garland, 1993; Nguyen and Czerwinsksi, 1993; Pierson and Gallant, 1993 .
There are many examples of ES applications used to dramatically change old

business processes. In one case, SMART at Compaq has enhanced the effectiveness of
its customer support staff by distributing problem-solving knowledge to the entire

Ž .support staff at the point it is needed Acorn and Walden, 1993 . Moreover, Quick-
Source has enabled Compaq to empower its customers with expert knowledge which

Žallows them to solve advanced network printer problems entirely on their own Nguyen
.and Czerwinsksi, 1993 . With the use of ES technology, Compaq has reengineered its

customer support strategy and implementation. In another organization, MPSA and
COLES are two interrelated systems which offer automated expert support to AT & T’s
scheduling and customer service staffs by improving and expanding the utility of

Ž .existing legacy mainframe systems McManus and Garland, 1993 . At Bell Atlantic,
SNNS was developed to provide automated support for the sales-service negotiation

Ž .process Carr et al., 1994 . This system has significantly improved sales efficiency and
optimized customer contact time.

Due to their effectiveness in improving existing business processes, ES have been
recognized as important implementation vehicles for business process reengineering
Ž . Ž .BPR Friedenberg and Rice, 1994; Hamscher, 1994b . However, in many cases ES
development and implementation has failed for a variety of reasons, including instances

Žwhen systems were rejected by their target user communities Coats, 1988; Keyes,
.1989b; Sloane, 1991 . Thus, a central issue deals with the factors affecting ES success or

failure under the time constraints created by BPR projects. This also becomes increas-
ingly important as managers contemplate investing company resources, time and effort
into establishing the infrastructure for adopting or expanding the use of ES technology.
The purpose of this study is to empirically test the various factors affecting ES success
when the system is used for BPR, as contrasted with the use of ES for merely
automating existing business processes or making relatively small changes.

Much of the research on MIS implementation research has been focused on identify-
ing the factors which appear to be conducive to either success or failure of other types of

Ž .computer-based information systems Guimaraes et al., 1992; Liang, 1986 . In the
Žcontext of ES, many success factors have been reported Ignizio, 1991; Keyes, 1989b;

.Prerau, 1990; O’Neal, 1990; Turban, 1992b; Yoon et al., 1995 . Although most of the
findings have been on the basis of personal opinion, some recent studies have empiri-

Ž .cally tested ES success factors Yoon et al., 1995 . The independent variables in this
study, the factors related to ES success reported in the literature, were categorized into

Ž . Ž .seven groups: problem importance, problem difficulty, developer s skill, end-user s
characteristics, shell characteristics, user involvement, and management support. Some
of these success factors are not unique to ES implementations. The vast majority of the

Ž . Ž .studies deal with transaction processing systems TPS , decision support systems DSS ,



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