Business Process Improvement for the E-Transition of the Apparel Industry 2000 TATSIOPOULOS ILIAS HADZILIAS ELIAS PANAYIOTOU NIKOLAOS

This is an account of work done in the RDBP (Research & Development Business Program) project funded by the Greek Government. A methodology is presented for the successful application of business improvement techniques on a pre-evaluated business process resulting in its upgrade from the support process level to the core process level supported by an IT-enabled solution. Corporate strategy guidelines in combination with well known techniques such as Value Chain Analysis are being used into assessing the process' chain value bottlenecks while modeling tools like IDEF0 is used for depicting both AS-IS and TO-BE business situations. The first goal within the RDBP project is to provide a methodology and IT solution for the implementation of newly emerged e-business models into well established traditional clothing industries along with presenting a true case study in the industrial pilot apparel industry. Key-Words: Business Process Improvement, Systems Modeling, Information Technology, E-Business.