A system dynamics approach for modeling a food safety incident: Borax incident for WDL Flour Company

Abstract

With the rapid increase of food supply, food safety incidents occur frequently. Therefore, how to prevent food safety incident and improve food safety management have become an open issue. In this paper, a particular food safety incident, that is, Borax incident for WDL Flour Company, is analyzed using system dynamics approach for providing guidance for food safety management, which usually involves multiple organizations and factors. To do this, a system dynamics (SD) model including a two-way communication mechanism between five organizations is established to simulate the process of the incident and the response of the company. The results show that the present SD model is effective to simulate the actual process of the food safety incident. Further, to explore the role of two-way communication in food safety incident control, five cases that respond to the process of two-way communication are assumed and the corresponding SD models to the five cases are established. It is revealed that the two-way communication between the five organizations plays an important role in food safety incident management, and its influence on food safety is systematic and nonlinear.