resourceflow

Resourceflow is a conceptual framework used to describe the movement, transformation, and consumption of resources within a system. It focuses on how resources enter, move through, are stored within, and exit a system. Diagrams and stock-and-flow models are commonly used to visualize resource flows and assess efficiency, resilience, and sustainability.

The concept is applied across diverse domains, including manufacturing, ecology, information technology, and urban planning. In economic production, resourceflow traces inputs such as raw materials and energy as they are transformed into goods and services. In ecological networks, it examines energy and nutrient transfer between organisms and environments. In IT, resources such as CPU time, memory, and bandwidth flow between services and components.

Key components are resources, flows, storage or stocks, capacities, and constraints, as well as feedback loops and sinks or sources. Mapping tools include flow diagrams, stock-and-flow models, and value-stream or supply-chain mappings. Quantitative analysis uses throughput, utilization, lead times, and wastage to identify bottlenecks and opportunities.

Applications aim to improve efficiency, reduce waste, and enhance sustainability by making implicit flows explicit. Limitations include data requirements, the risk of oversimplifying dynamic behavior, and challenges in capturing qualitative factors such as human behavior or policy effects.

Related concepts include material flow analysis, energy flow, and systems-dynamics approaches to modeling complex networks.