Anticipatory vs. Realized Input and Output Information in the Steering Models of Complex Production Processes

The most important aspect of any industrial application of models has to be considered to consist of its ability to predict as accurately as possible the resource or economic behaviour of the process under investigation (Fogelholm, 1999, p.543). The probably most useful scientific tool to judge the accuracies or calculate the complexities of the various input elements of any industrial process, the systematic treatment of these inputs in the form of a model, and thus also of the final output, has to be considered to consist of the application variety analysis. Variety is defined as the number of possible states of whatever it is whose complexity we want to measure (Beer, 1990, p.32). In this paper the usefulness of decision-making information of industrial economic processes will be studied from this perspective.