SIMULATION OF A SCHOOL CANTEEN TO UNDERSTAND MEAL DURATION IMPACT ON FOOD WASTE

Abstract

A system simulation is a one of the approaches to understand business processes or to explain them to other people. It is an excellent decision making solution to provide data-driven conclusions based on system modelling and experiments. This paper proposes simulation results of a school canteen. The aim of the research was to investigate the relation between a food waste amount and meal time duration. The proposed simulation was based on business process analysis, business process modelling, a Monte Carlo method and expert knowledge. The frequency distributions were constructed based on children meal duration observation completed by their mothers. It is a magnificent citizen science solution to involve mothers in the research because they can additionally better understand their children meal preferences and habits. Therefore, a questionnaire for citizens was developed, which can be applied to collect statistical data for model accuracy improvement and extension.