1. Introduction
The growing demands on industry and the conditions of modernity are caused by a number of objective reasons: the problem of the exhaustion of natural resources, intensive environmental pollution, and concern for future generations. Industrial systems that do not meet the requirements of the external (interaction with the environment and excessive emissions of pollutants, external effects in relation to society, etc.) and internal environment (working conditions, the state of fixed assets, etc.), need significant modernization. This affects the efficiency of the functioning of industrial systems, due to the level of rationality of capital investment, operating costs, organization and automation of production, digitalization of industrial systems, and innovation activities. The importance of managing the efficiency of innovative industrial systems in Russia is due to the high indices of industrial production: over a ten-year period (2010–2020) the index in Russia was 124%, Turkey—167%, Poland—143%, Australia—126%, the Republic of Korea—115%, USA—104%, Japan—88%, etc. [
1]. However, Russian industry operates under conditions of high depreciation of fixed assets (at the end of 2021 in the extractive industry the index was 60.8%, and in the manufacturing sector—52.5%), which increases production risks and, presumably, affects the performance. Thus, under the conditions of tightening economic conditions, the management of efficiency and its factors becomes especially important, which makes the problems studied in this article urgent.
The aim of the study is to develop a predictive model of performance management of innovative industrial systems by building neural networks. The theoretical significance of the formulated provisions consists of the development of the methodology of performance management. The practical significance of the research lies in the possibility of predicting the performance of enterprises based on data management of the assets of industrial systems, and the identification of the degree of influence of production factors on the results of the functioning of industrial systems.
The object of the study is innovative industrial systems. The key features of such systems are, firstly, notable innovation activity, supported by human capital, scientific potential, availability of resources, investments, and secondly, production of products. Consequently, the considered category is based on a combination of the designated key features with an orientation on technological development. Let us highlight the provisions characterizing the functioning of innovative industrial systems in modern economic conditions.
First, industrial innovations determine the competitiveness of companies on the market and make a significant contribution to improving the quality of products [
2,
3,
4].
Second, the ongoing structural transformation of industrial systems is accompanied by modernization, the quality of which is determined by innovation [
5,
6].
Third, the level of change management determines the category of the system, in connection with which modern scientists distinguish such types of innovation systems as national, regional, technological, and sectoral [
7,
8,
9,
10,
11,
12,
13,
14,
15]. Our research is focused on innovative branch systems, i.e., systems which unite organizations (links of production system), processing raw materials into finished products, and interacting with each other and with infrastructural organizations of a national innovation system.
Fourthly, the interaction of agents in the innovative development of industry takes place under various forms of cooperation, which include clusters [
16,
17,
18], technological platforms [
19,
20], consortia [
21,
22] and other types of cooperation.
Generalizing the above provisions, as well as relying on [
23], let us clarify the definition of «innovation industrial system». Under it, we understand a set of interconnected subsystems, processes, elements, and participants, united by commodity-raw, energy, information, financial and service flows, contributing to the production of industrial products and the formation of GDP. By subsystems, we mean a subsystem of R&D, supply, production, distribution, transport, storage subsystems, and related infrastructure. Industrial systems can be considered at the scale of micro, meso- and macro levels. In the first case we should understand a production system and its functioning subsystems, in the second case—an industrial complex (a set of interacting enterprises located in a particular territory and united by industry, in particular, industrial clusters, holdings), in the third case—national industry as an independent branch of the national economy, uniting extractive, manufacturing, and energy production.
The behavior of complex systems, in particular industrial systems, is influenced by many external and internal factors, predictable and random. In this regard, the processes occurring in innovative industrial systems are stochastic in nature. Simulation tools allow us to assess and predict the behavior of such a system, as well as the nature and degree of influence of factors. In the conditions of the necessity of processing large arrays of data (on equipment operation, technological and business processes, stocks, etc.) methods of predictive analytics: Data mining, statistical and econometric methods, and methods of artificial intelligence are recognized as valuable tools. The latter is based on the training of neural networks, which has gained popularity in practice today: the search for minerals, solving logistics problems, the prediction of equipment failures, etc. Against the background of the advantages of neural networks, statistical methods of data processing (correlation and regression, cluster analysis, factor analysis and the principal component method, classification, and regression trees, etc.) have a certain weakness—the prediction of results based only on available data; neural networks can generate a prediction based on data not encountered in the training.
The practical application of neural network tools is popular and covered in the studies of many scientists. Conceptually, the neural network training methodology is widely covered in the scientific literature [
24,
25,
26,
27,
28,
29,
30,
31]. According to scientists, the quality and adequacy of models, and their predictive properties for extrapolation purposes are conditioned by the data set and their volume. Learning neural networks contribute to the structuring of information about complex dynamic systems, which include industrial systems. In this regard, neural networks are widely used in industry, due to the need for high-quality processing of large amounts of data on resource consumption, energy consumption, and business processes. In the context of oil pipeline monitoring and petroleum product volume prediction, this tool is highlighted in Mayet et al. where pipeline performance characteristics (amplitudes) are defined as inputs of the neural network, with percentages of four petroleum products as outputs [
32]. To ensure continuous pharmaceutical production, the neural network model was tested by Wong et al. [
33].
One of the purposes of the neural network technique is forecasting. A one-dimensional GDP prediction model was proposed by Longo et al. [
34]. The problems of forecasting the regional industrial systems, where the authors proposed a neural network model with two blocks of input data (block 1—regional system and regional GDP level; block 2—panel data network and indicators of regional GDP growth index, mining, manufacturing and service sector growth values), and output parameters—forecasted values of industrial growth are disclosed in the works of Tuo et al. [
35]. A predictive neural network model was proposed by Zhao and Niu [
36]. The authors investigated the dependence of CO
2 emissions on four factors—population, GDP per capita, standard coal consumption and the share of thermal power generation. Adesanya et al. use neural networks to predict process parameters in the thermoplastic extrusion process in the cable industry, whereby the authors set nine neurons (parameters describing physical material properties) as the input and 11 neurons (temperature parameters) as the output layer [
37].
Under the conditions of implementation of resource and energy-saving policies, energy consumption management is of particular importance, and in this regard, neural network models have become very popular in the context of rationalization of energy consumption. The study by Leite Coelho da Silva et al. presents the results of building a one-dimensional model for predicting energy consumption and reveals that a better prediction is obtained by building an MLP mode [
38]. Shinkevich et al. propose energy resource optimization methods based on neural network training: the input parameters of the model are optimal, minimal and average energy consumption values, deviation and variance, and the output parameter is the optimal energy consumption in the chemical industry [
39]. Ramos et al. propose a model to predict the electricity consumption of industrial facilities by analyzing online data (consolidated every 5 min) and applying an artificial neural network (ANN) [
40]. Seawram et al. propose a predictive model of specific heat capacity (one neuron per output) based on the latent dependence of the target variable on the input parameters (nine neurons per input—different parameters of base fluid, nanoparticles and temperature) consistent with sustainable development and direction to reduce carbon dioxide emissions [
41]. The team of scientists, Dli et al., built a process state prediction model using recurrent neural networks [
42]. Thus, the key effect of modeling industrial systems based on a neural network is to improve the quality of manufactured products and the level of safety of production systems.
The methodology for training neural networks to assess the performance of enterprises (microindustrial systems) is covered in a number of papers [
43,
44,
45], which demonstrates the high practical value and widespread application of deep learning tools as part of the evaluation and prediction of enterprise performance. However, studies limited to economic and innovation indicators, ignoring the environmental aspects of the functioning of enterprises prevail. Thus, Du combines such a wide range of indicators, including innovation activities, but does not focus on the analysis of a series of dynamics and prospection, but on a set of enterprises with an identical set of indicators, and does not consider environmental issues [
43]. A similar approach is outlined in a study by Luo and Ren [
45], but it also omits the environmental issue.
At the same time, the literature review of scientific positions allows us to judge the presence of a certain unrealized potential in the methodology of industrial systems efficiency management: there are no methodological solutions based on the training of artificial neural networks, allowing us to evaluate and predict the direction of industrial development, considering a complex of factors—innovation, environmental friendliness, modernization and production growth. An interesting approach to regional industry management based on neural networks was found in [
35], but the authors limited the study to the inclusion of GDP and production index indicators. The above determines the relevance and importance of the development of predictive models and directions of development of both macro- and micro-industrial systems with the use of intelligent data processing tools.
2. Materials and Methods
The algorithm of this study is built on the principle of decomposition at the macro- and micro levels of management of industrial systems. In the first case, we are talking about the industrial sector of the Russian economy, represented mainly by extractive and manufacturing industries. The array of data for diagnostics and forecasting of the development of industrial systems (in retrospect) covers the period from 2005 to 2021—the period of structural transformation of industry in Russia [
1,
46]. In addition, speaking of innovative industrial systems, we refer not only to the output of innovative products but also to the investment of resources in improving the environmental friendliness of production. In the second case—at the micro level—the object of the research was a Russian industrial petrochemical enterprise PJSC «Nizhnekamskneftekhim»; the initial data set represented by the time series for 2009–2021 (quarterly data). The choice in favor of this enterprise is due to its strategic importance since it is one of the largest petrochemical enterprises in Russia and in Europe, one of the largest producers of synthetic polyisoprene in the world and the third largest supplier of butyl rubbers in the world.
Consequently, it is strategically important to develop adequate predictive models that can not only consider the history of the development of the industrial system but also be able to predict the results of activity under the influence of certain factors. In this regard, the following stages of research are outlined:
identification of patterns and trends in the development of macro- and micro-industrial systems;
forecasting the efficiency of innovative macro-industrial systems;
predicting the efficiency of the microindustrial system.
The methodological basis of this study is a set of the following stages of modeling:
information gathering;
identification of significant relationships between indicators (correlation analysis);
formation of a mathematical model;
model verification;
analysis of simulation results.
As an indicator of efficiency at the macro level, the use of the gross value added, combining the interests of all participants of the industrial system and the economy as a whole state proposed. It is a value equal to the difference between the volume of produced goods and services and their intermediate consumption [
1]. The latter covers payroll, net profit, taxes, and depreciation, which is of interest not only to owners, but also to the state, investors, and employees.
We took the gross value added (Yi) as the dependent variable:
Ymining—is the gross value added created in the mining sector (billion rubles);
Ymanufacturing—is the gross value added created in the manufacturing sector (billion rubles).
Taking into consideration current trends in economic development, the following indicators are taken as independent variables:
DFA(i)—degree of depreciation of fixed assets on the full range of organizations of the i-th sector of industry (%)—criterion of technical modernization;
VSG(i)—volume of shipped goods of own production, work and services performed by own forces in the i-th sector of industry (million rubles)—development criterion;
VIG(i)—volume of innovative goods, works, and services in the Russian Federation (million rubles)—criterion of innovative activity;
RW(i)—use and neutralization of production and consumption waste in the i-th sector of industry (million tons)—greening criterion.
At the micro level, the evaluation efficiency of the classical indicators of profitability, taken as dependent (output) variables carried out, and taken as dependent (output) variables:
Rps—profitability of sold products;
Rs—return on sales.
As input variables (independent) investigated:
CA—current assets (thousand rubles);
FA—fixed assets (thousand rubles);
GP—gross profit (thousand rubles);
PS—profit from sales (thousand rubles).
Based on the identified relationships between the criteria variables and predictors the author’s methodology for assessing the effectiveness of innovative industrial systems (IIS) is proposed. Our approach is based on the method of rating assessments and benchmarks and focused on a comprehensive assessment of the development of an innovative industrial system. For this purpose, the index which takes into consideration the correlation of predictors with the gross added value created by a separate sector of the economy—the growth of the innovative industrial system coefficient (
Kiisd) is developed. It takes into consideration the criteria of technical modernization, development, innovation activity, and ecologization and reflects the complex efficiency of industrial system functioning. The algorithm of the methodology (
Figure 1) clearly reflects the stages and the arrays of necessary data formed at each stage.
The suggested methodology is distinguished by taking into account heterogeneous, but significant components of the functioning of industrial enterprises (technical modernization, development, innovation activity, and greening), which allows us to overcome the limitations in assessing the directions of development; correlates with the interests of all stakeholders in the economic system (noted above); is multifaceted, flexible and adaptive (the weighting factors are adjustable and respond to changes in the dynamics of indicators), which affects the correlation coefficients. The formulated methodology develops the previously proposed by us method for assessing the sustainable growth of innovative mesosystems (ISDI) [
23] and overcomes the problems of dimensionality of the parameters under study.
The result of the presented methodology is the calculation of the coefficient of development of an innovative industrial system—
Kiisd (1):
where
j—is one of the four attributes (
DFA,
VSG,
VIG,
RW);
Aij(min) or
Aij(max))—is the reference value for the corresponding attribute in the dynamics series;
Aij(year)—is the actual value of the indicator in a particular year;
wj—is the weight coefficient
j attribute;
aj—the rank assigned to the
j attribute in accordance with the value of the correlation coefficient (
aj = 4 for the attribute with the strongest correlation;
aj = 1 for the attribute with the weakest correlation);
Yi—the gross value added created in the
i-th industry sector.
At the next stages of the study, modeling and forecasting of the indicators are carried out. The forecasting tool was artificial neural networks (ANN), trained in the Statistica environment. Of the three available modeling strategies (automated neural networks search (ANS), custom neural networks (CNS) and subsampling (random, bootstrap)) the ANS option is used in all modeling cases. The basic problem solved by neural networks is regression. The neural network parameters are weights and shifts of neurons, and the hyperparameters are the number of layers, the number of neurons in each layer, activation functions and the error function. Let us consider these parameters in more detail.
The neural network construction is based on the summation function of a neuron, which consists of the summation of products of input values by their weight coefficients (2):
where
Y—is the output value;
X = (
x1,
x2 …,
xn)—is a vector of input signals, a feature;
W = (
ω1,
ω2 …,
ωn)—is a vector of weights reflecting the significance of the corresponding feature (strength of synaptic connection, synapse); b is the activation function bias neuron.
The inputs of the artificial neural network are a mathematical vector of numbers X (3):
where
σ—is the standard deviation of the width of the radial-baseline function; S is the weighted sum of the neuron;
The following activation functions in MLP training applied:
The error function (neural network error) in regression problems is determined by the formula for summing the squares of errors (9):
where
Y—is the actual value of the output variable and
Y*—
Y* is the predicted value of the output variable.
We evaluated the quality of trained artificial neural networks using the test sample with the average absolute error MAPE (10):
where
n—is the number of observations in the test sample (automatically);
YAR—is the absolute residuals on
Y in the test sample.
According to the architecture, all neural networks are divided into two types: single-layer and multilayer. A single-layer network is a neural network without hidden layers, the signals of the input layer, including synapses, are fed to the output layer, which provides a relatively high speed of learning; the architecture of such a network is stable and does not vary; pre-processing of predictors is required [
47,
48,
49,
50,
51]. However, due to the simplicity of tuning and consequently, the low accuracy of the model, we do not use the method of training single-layer neural networks in the study.
We rely on the application of a multilayer neural network (deep), in which the input signals pass through hidden layers with one set of synapses, and only then to the output layer with other weights. While the single-layer network requires careful preparation of the input data, in the multilayer neural networks this problem is overcome by the transformation and selection of features during training. At the same time, the addition of hidden layers causes an increase in the training time of the network, and the ability to process a small amount of data and retraining can contribute to a low quality of prediction [
52,
53,
54,
55].
Thus, the key type of neural network used in the paper is a multilayer network (1 hidden layer with
h neurons), where
x—is a set of predictors, inputs, and
Y—is a set of categorical variables, outputs (
Figure 2).
Homogeneous and heterogeneous neural networks are distinguished according to the type of neuronal structures. In the first case, homogeneous networks consist of neurons with one type of activation, while in the second case there is a combination of activation functions [
56]. In our study, there are artificial neural networks of both types, but predominantly heterogeneous ones, because in this way the network automatically chooses the best option to calculate the output value.
The methodological basis was the use of such methods of data processing as correlation analysis, training of neural networks (species—regression), extrapolation, and exponential smoothing. An instrumental set of data processing includes such software products as Statistica (module—«Automated neural networks search», «Time series and forecasting») and Deductor Studio (module—Neural network). The calculation of efficiency indicators and the coefficient of development of the innovative industrial system Kiisd is implemented in Microsoft Excel.
4. Discussion
An analytical review of scientific approaches to performance management allows us to state the widespread use of artificial neural network tools to predict the behavior of complex systems. This work highlights numerous studies aimed at the study and development of neural network modeling methodology, where the object is mathematical tools, industries, enterprises, oil product volumes, GDP, CO
2 emissions, technological parameters, etc. However, in the conditions of Russian industry’s transition to sustainable development, circular economy, as well as innovative development, a comprehensive assessment of the efficiency of industrial systems becomes important. Such an attempt in a study by Tuo et al. has been made [
35] but is limited to the growth of production and GDP. Other studies are limited to either technological processes [
41,
42], the environmental performance of industrial systems [
36], or electricity consumption forecasting [
38], etc.
We have come to the conclusion that there is no one-size-fits-all, true methodology for the performance management of industrial systems, which expands the scope for incremental methodology. We continue to emphasize complex solutions, which allow for a comprehensive assessment of a particular system. The tasks set for production enterprises and complexes at the federal level affect the issues of innovative development, modernization, and recycling. This formed the basis of our research and contributed to the identification of patterns of development of industrial systems of different levels and obtaining a number of new scientific results. Thus, we develop the methodology of performance management the industrial systems based on modern data processing tools.
Neural networks of different types and architectures served as a key tool for the processing of a series of dynamics. The advantage of this tool in relation to others (e.g., regression analysis) is that the mechanism of multilayer artificial neural networks automatically selects the best architecture based on the predefined conditions—the given sample structure (training, control, test), choice of neural network type (MLP or RBF), number of neurons on the hidden layer and activation function. This tool allows to train different variants of networks based on the same set of input data and to select the best model in terms of quality.
Thus, this article formulates the following conclusions and results.
The methodological solution for calculating the coefficient of development of an innovative industrial system (Kiisd), which develops the scientific groundwork in the field of efficiency management, is distinguished by its comprehensiveness and takes into account the most important components for today (the criteria of technical modernization, development, innovation activity, greening is taken into account). The basic principle of calculation of the indicator is universal and based on the results of correlation analysis. The combination of correlation, ranking and the determination of weighting coefficients makes our approach unique. The verification of the methodology confirms the correctness and adequacy of the real dynamics of the effectiveness of industrial systems.
The patterns of development of industrial systems in Russia (extractive and manufacturing) are based on the implementation of two methods—trend extrapolation and neural network modeling (univariate and multivariate). The results of comparing the results of the two methods identify different trajectories of development of industrial systems: in the first case—unconditional growth of the efficiency indicator (gross value added), and in the second case—decline. These trends allow us to summarize the difficult predictability of the development of innovative industrial systems, as well as the finding of the Russian industry at the point of bifurcation. The way out of the bifurcation point can be a structural transformation of state support of industrial enterprises of development institutions.
Prognostic neural network models, which allow for optimizing the contribution of attributes in the formation of target (set) values of performance indicators have been developed. The models are complemented by the definition of those priority directions of development of macro-industrial systems, which today are not given enough attention (according to the results of economic-mathematical modeling). Our conclusions and proposals will make it possible to align the growth trajectory of production systems.
Based on the results of neural network training, scenarios for the development of the micro-industrial system were proposed, allowing the forming of an idea and the potential vector of development of the enterprise—the growth or decline in efficiency. The choice of the direction of development is conditioned by the necessity of rationalization of production capacities and further modernization of technical infrastructure.
It is determined that the efficiency of industrial systems is determined by the volume of sales of goods, which is logical and natural. At the same time, innovative products and recycling of waste, which allow for saving resources, also make a significant contribution to the formation of gross value added.
The limitation of the proposed methodological complex is in the data set: a trained neural network will give better results with a larger data set. The wider the data set, the more cases the predictive model will consider.
Summarizing the study, we note that the constructed predictive models are non-linear in nature (the construction of the linear regression equation did not give a qualitative adequate model with significant regression coefficients). Neural networks allow us to overcome the complexity of such dependence, which is comparable to the opinion of other scientists [
37,
51]: multilayer networks with linear activation functions can be transformed into single-layer ones, which negatively affects network performance and prediction results.
Our findings and recommendations can be useful as a methodological basis for monitoring the effectiveness of industrial systems of different levels (for statistical services and public authorities) and can be included in strategies and programs for the development of industry in the country, and can be applied to the forecasting of activities based on the training of artificial neural networks.