13/01/2005

An important Greek initiative, aimed at promoting innovation and improving the competitiveness of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) active in the food industry, is currently in progress. It concerns the SARA (Supply Arrangements Enriching Innovation) project which is partly financed by the 5th Framework Programme and is part of the European “Innovation and Small and Medium-sized Enterprises” programme. The co-ordinator of the SARA project is the Thessaloniki Technology Park Management and Development Company (MDC/TTP S.A.), an organisation that is also partner of the Hellenic Innovation Relay Centre (IRC Hellenic).

This particular initiative is being implemented in co-operation with equivalent organisations in Great Britain (Eddleston Innovation Ltd), Spain (Instituto Andaluz de Tecnologia), Germany (TTZ Bremerhaven) and Bulgaria (Applied Research & Communications Fund). The project’s primary aim is the development and promotion of a tool which will incorporate methodologies that can help SMEs of the food and drinks industry improve their organisation, operation and administration.

The four individual methodologies that will be implemented by the participating organisations and will be unified in a comprehensive programme concern crucial enterprise operations, namely:

- Supply Chain Management, i.e. all procedures involved in the transfer of goods, from the raw material stage to the consumer, in order to speed availability of the final products. This will provide enterprises with a significant advantage in profits and quality, by reducing the time required to bring its products to the market.

- Knowledge Management, i.e. the combination of modern administrative practices supported by information systems, in order to utilise the entire knowledge capital of an enterprise, through increased efficiency of daily operations and decision-making processes, both time-wise and qualitatively.

- Value Analysis, i.e. the establishment of an appropriate balance (one that is beneficial for the company) between the parameters that an enterprise’s product or service must possess in order to satisfy its clients’ need and the respective production cost.

- Networking Greek SMEs of the food industry with other countries’ businesses for the purposes of co-operation and exchange of best practice.

Through the automatic matchmaking tool used in the SARA project, Greek food and drinks companies will be able to proceed to new partnerships with companies from any part of the world, on issues related to imports and exports, marketing, commercial representation, funding etc.

As part of this project, the food and drinks companies in the region of Central Macedonia are invited to declare whether they would be interested in participating, at no cost, in the pilot phase of the implementation of these innovative methodologies. In total, 13 food companies from Central Macedonia will be selected for participation. Three of them will participate in the pilot phase of the programme, while the other ten will be trained in the implementation of these methodologies. The implementation of new methodologies in the enterprises selected will take place during the first semester of 2005, at no charge to the companies.

Source: Thessaloniki Technology Park