ABSTRACT
Overview e inherent capability of information technology (IT) to create and improve process workflows has dramatically increased within the past few decades. Improvements in IT capability are easily visible in reductions in cycle time from concept to market, a reduction in the number of design changes, a reduction in the percentage of rework costs to revenue, a reduction in the total customer life cycle cost, and a reduction in software design costs as a percentage of revenue. ese metrics are also listed in Table 15.1. is capability has been enabled, in part, by the explosive growth of the Internet and personal computing, which have connected people to each other all over the world. ese connections allow the exchange of information of all types, as well the collaboration of diverse work teams on projects spanning global supply chains. is increase in technological sophistication has evolved through the major IT areas shown in Figure 15.1. ese include the business process management suite (BMPS), business process management (BPM), business process modeling and analysis (BPMA), business intelligence (BI), business activity monitoring (BAM), enterprise application integration (EAI), and workflow
management (WM), as well as Internet transactions, e-mail, and standardized enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. In this chapter, our goal is to discuss these systems, including their tools, methods, and concepts, as they apply to the design and management of global supply chains.
