RESEARCH AND INNOVATION
The subject of our research is the development of a MICROSERVICE MODULAR PACKAGE (MPM) in terms of its implementation mainly in the target group of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) intending to produce high-quality food and at the same time interested in a constant increase in their market competitiveness using innovative computer-aided methods of OPTIMAL management decisions for various time horizons.
The innovative aspects of the project boil down, inter alia, to the use of microservice information technology on which the MPM concept is based and, above all, to an interdisciplinary approach in the field of economic IT applications supporting both effective monitoring of high-quality food production processes (according to standards; GHP, GMP, HACCP, etc. .) but also, identifying the relationship between these activities and the achievement of global optimization of management processes in the company.
Global optimization may occur in those cases when we take into account in the decision-making process all key factors having a specific impact on financial results. Otherwise, we are talking more about sub-optimal solutions. The innovative aspects also include the possibility of verifying, based on the so-called Evidence Based Argumentation, various hypotheses regarding the economic efficiency of activities for the assumed constraints and time horizons, and the use of knowledge management and artificial intelligence elements.
Both algorithms and DSS (Decision Support Systems) decision support systems are not universal, unlike the popular ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), and therefore are not available on the commercial market. Therefore, the existing and available ERP information systems are not competitive products, but rather complementary in relation to our solutions.
The main difference between ERP systems and our DSS proposal is that; information systems are most often based on financial accounting standards and, in principle, are used for internal (ex-post) reporting (for the management board) and external (for; Central Statistical Office, Tax Office, Warsaw Stock Exchange, etc.) of already concluded transactions, so they are not suitable for optimizing decisions for future events . On the other hand, the simulation algorithms and decision systems developed by us take into account numerous additional aspects, such as; elements of managerial accounting, forecasting, logistics, operational research, heuristic modeling, knowledge management elements, etc. For this reason, they are interdisciplinary, so we can use them as much as possible for the purposes of estimating economic efficiency and optimizing management processes.
As a result, one of the long-distance goals of our MPM is to obtain the a breakthrough innovation, which, through multi-faceted optimization activities, may lead to a significant reduction in unit costs (and thus to significantly reduced prices), stimulating a radical increase in sales and thus a significant increase in the company’s competitive position.