Hierarchical Macrosystems as Models of Technological Business Processes in the Food Industry

Abstract

This paper considers business processes in the food industry from the standpoint of the theory of macrosystems. The distinctive feature of such business processes is their multidimensionality, which requires taking into account their technological, economic, and information aspects. This paper proposes a hierarchical macrosystem model for modeling business processes in the food industry, analyzes the issue of choosing optimal modes for such business processes, provides a mathematical basis for the proposed model, and proposes the necessary optimality criteria. The paper uses a model of a scalar business process as the simplest model for finding analytical solutions. With such an approximation, flows on each stratum of a macrosystem model are considered to be scalar, and aggregated. In this case, each stratum represents an analog of a thermal engine where original resources are transformed into a target product, such as finished goods, profits, or an information flow. The comprehensive, hierarchical approach allows structuring the obtained model and determining optimality criteria for business processes. The obtained results can be used for modeling business processes, taking into account the aggregation of resource flows on each stratum of the hierarchy.