Cybernetic modelling and updating of economic steering systems in the paper industries

The idea of feedback presents for many the embodiment of Cybernetics, though it only represents one important aspect of this science, which can be traced back more than half a century to ROSENBLEUTH et al. [21], when it was shown how this concept could be used to posit purpose for machines. In the years since all these theoretical concepts have been published, there has been many developments in the technical concepts of cybernetics and in the realm of applications. One area of application, however, where these insights have been quite neglected, is represented by the models required by and used in economic steering systems of industrial enterprises, which are still based on the central ideas of Managament or Cost Accounting, where the updating of the information embedded in the resource model, which represents the core of this system, has received only slight emphasis. This paper deals with the recent findings in the area of updating resource or cost models in the Paper Industry, which basically incorporates the discoveries of the Activity-Based Costing, which has been developed since the 1980's, but where almost all applications have been in the Assembly Industries.