The Power of X Is your company designed for optimal efficiency?

James Champy and co-author Michael Hammer started a revolutionwith the 1993 bestseller Reengineering the Corporation(HarperBusiness). Champy, now head of Perot Systems' consultingunit, is at it again with X-Engineering the Corporation (WarnerBusiness Books, $25.95). His work is once again aimed at businessprocesses, but this time he focuses on using information technologyto improve them.

X-engineering goes beyond setting up a Web site. Champytalks about fully integrating the cyberworld into sales,procurement, hiring, customer service, supplier relations and more.Instead of just taking product orders online, an X-engineeredcompany would have information about customer orders electronicallyflow to warehouses and assembly operations, as well as those of itssuppliers and even its suppliers' suppliers. Champy alsorecommends standardizing software and other technologies to makeprocesses from checking credit to filling out shipping forms asefficient as possible.

Of course, reengineering made similar claims, which companiesfound hard to obtain. And Champy admits X-engineering isn'tfoolproof either. But the worst news is, you have to reengineerbefore you X-engineer. So if you missed the last revolution,you'll have to go backward before you go forward.