Information Technology in Small Medium Enterprise: Logistic and Production Processes

Abstract

This paper presents and discuss a survey which describes how small-medium enterprises (SMEs) implement and use their information system with respect to their logistic and production processes. The study first describes the rationale of the research, then it identifies the characteristics of the companies and detects their general attitude towards information technology (IT). In the following section the paper presents a set of detailed processes to verify the structure and workflow of companies and how IT supports their processes. In the last part we study the influence of some company characteristics to effective use of processes and to different technological approaches, to support defined logistic and production processes. The novelty of the study and its interest, both in academic and institutional context as in the real world, resides in the opportunity to verify and understand the different attitudes of SMEs towards information technology in defining, organizing, planning and control their processes.