The Machine System as a Factor of Scientific and Technical Progress in the Agro-industrial Complex

This paper proposes a principle for forming a machine system using the object process methodology for modeling technical systems as a system engineering methodology. The central concept of the machine system is a scientific and technological progress (STP): the machine system should simultaneously promote progress in the agro-industrial complex (AIC) and reflect it. The paper presents the definition of the machine system, its functions, main goal, architecture, interested parties, and external environment. The machine system is positioned as a mixed system combining conceptual, substantive, and physical components. The conceptual part represents an informational product, i.e., the machine system itself in the form of a computer program, website, standards, databases, printed materials, etc. The physical component represents a group of experts in the field of the machine system development. Under conditions of a market economy, the machine system should be based on the technical equipment types rather than on its brands and models; the definition of these types should be based on the separation of functional and nonfunctional characteristics of the hardware. To substantiate machine types, a preliminary list of nonfunctional characteristics of agricultural machinery has been formed. Diagrams reflecting the architecture of the machine system and the development of agricultural machine types have been constructed. The machine system architecture represents a combination of the machine system structure and the activities of experts in the field of machine system development; this combination provides the proper functioning of the machine system, whose main functions include systematization of agricultural machinery and technologies as well as formation of the understanding of the interested parties in relation to the STP state and directions of its development in the agro-industrial complex (AIC).