Int. J. Production Economics 60—61 (1999) 103 — 107 Reengineering for human resource management in Japanese companies: Is it important to be introduced? Didik Purwadi*, Kazuo Tanaka, Masaharu Ota  Industrial System Management Lab, Department of Agroindustrial Technology, Faculty of Agricultural Technology, Gadjah Mada University, Jalan Sosioyustisia Bulaksumur Yogyakarta 55281, Indonesia  Faculty of Business, Osaka City University, 3-3-138 Sugimoto-cho, Sumiyoshi-ku, Osaka 558, Japan Abstract Recently, many companies have been introducing a reengineering concept for increasing their performance through getting extreme changes. Reengineering has major similarity for human resource management in Japanese companies, such as job integration, decision making, stressing in education, etc. Firstly, this paper will review the concept of reengineering briefly, then provide a deep discussion on the comparison between the concept of reengineering and human resource management in Japanese companies. Finally, it will evaluate whether reengineering is important to be introduced for human resource management in Japanese companies.  1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Reengineering; Human resource management; Japanese company 1. Introduction 1.1. Background Currently, “reengineering” has become an im- portant word, because it promises a good solution to win the world business which is being pressured to change. Companies introduce a reengineering concept to improve their system to have higher competitiveness. Hammer and Stanton [1], p. xi, explained that 75—80% of the largest USA companies have already begun reengineering and * Corresponding author. there will be an increase in their commitment to it over the next few years. Reengineering is needed by almost every com- pany, especially companies that find themselves in deep trouble, or that are not yet in trouble but whose management has the foresight to see trouble coming. Even for companies which are in a peak condition, reengineering becomes a tool or an op- portunity to sustain their lead position over their competitors. In order to get the successful challenge, technical and human aspects of reengineering should be pro- vided. The technical aspect addresses the steps to reinvent the process; and the human aspect addresses the creation of an organization in which 0925-5273/99/$ - see front matter  1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 9 2 5 - 5 2 7 3 ( 9 8 ) 0 0 1 3 9 - X