The objective of the BPR Flow project is to develop the next generation of maintenance and repair business systems based on process re-engineering and workflow management integrating commercially available software.

Initially the concept will be tested within the Aero Engine Repair environment with the aim of proving its relevance in other Repair and Overhaul (R&O) sectors. The approach taken will be to rapidly re-engineer a number of R&O business process and with the use of workflow management techniques to develop demonstrators which will integrate existing functionality to support the new business processes. Comparisons with traditional methods will be produced and end-user involvement at all stages will validate the industrial relevance of the approach.

The definition phase, which commenced on 1 Sept 1995, is seen as an integral part of the project. It aims to provide evidence to support the consortiums' current belief that it is possible, using the proposed methodologies, to cut the business analysis, requirements definition and system implementation phases by more than 50% both in terms of elapsed time and resource expended when compared to the more traditional methods. Inherent in the methodology is the ability to quickly and cost effectively adapt the IT support system to evolving business process changes.

During the six month Definition phase the project team will seek to:
* Develop and document the methodology, methods and tools to be used for performing the rapid re-engineering of business processes.
* Validate the new Business Process Re-engineering approach on two selected processes.
* Validate the IT approach, both in terms of its feasibility (use of work flow manager to integrate existing functionality to support a new re-engineered business process), and in terms of adaptability (the reduction in the time it takes to adapt the support system to changes to the business processes and associated work flows).
* Validate the industrial relevance and potential benefits.
* Prepare the exploitation plans (business plans) and dissemination plans based on the results obtained during the definition project, to ensure a relevant business perspective prior to embarking on first, a Pilot and subsequently a full implementation.