Continuous Improvement Software

X-engineering (sometimes called cross-engineering) is a collaborative and process-oriented approach to change management in the business world. According to James Champy, author of "X-Engineering the Corporation," the three central principles of X-engineering are "transparency, standardization, and harmonization" among companies, customers, and suppliers. Champy claims that the new approach is a further development of reengineering, a concept he and Michael Hammer introduced in the early 1990s (the two co-authored "Reengineering the Corporation") that stressed the need for fundamental changes in business processes and a new reliance on technology to bring those changes about.

Just as was true of reengineering, technology is the driving force behind X-engineering: advances in information technology have made it possible to manage information and transactions more effectively than ever before. Furthermore, all parties involved can benefit from a more collaborative approach to information sharing and less redundancy of effort. In a Technology Review article, Champy explains that "The 'X' in X-engineering refers to crossing organizational boundaries. Future productivity improvements will come from the redesign of the processes that operate between a company, its customers, suppliers, and partners, and possibly its competitors."