SUMMARY
The World Health Organization has defined food terrorism as an “act or threat of deliberate contamination of food for human consumption with biological, chemical and physical agents or radionuclear materials for the purpose of causing injury or death to civilian populations and/or disrupting social, economic or political stability”. According to the Association of Food and Drug Officials in the USA, food defense includes the means to prevent and eradicate any deliberate action of food contamination planned to cause severe harm or death to people or animals. Such actions of food terrorism cause the spread of diseases and a lack of confidence in local sanitary control. Hence, international trade restrictions may arise and disrupt national economies. In general terms, food defense is a strategic plan that works consistently on the links of the food supply chain. Food defense is used to analyze and manage the risks associated with deliberate food contamination in business processes. 
The food industry has acknowledged the potential risks in the food supply chain and has established diverse recommendations and regulations for better management, control and prevention. However, these initiatives have been predominantly voluntary, isolated and poorly coordinated. There is still a need for more research, especially in terms of supply chain management, where the aim is to strengthen a more efficient collaboration and coordination between organizations to prevent risk. 
Research shows that there have been very few studies on food defense following the Enterprise Modeling and Business Process Management (BPM) frameworks or adopting a supply chain vision. Research about México reveals that there have been almost no studies in these fields. Thus, theses areas of interest have been selected for the present study. Indeed, very little work has been done to establish a systematic procedure for implementing food defense in business processes. Such a procedure may allow analysis and improvement in each step of food supply, according to the market requirements, and following the academics’ and experts’ recommendations to prevent food terrorism. 
Therefore, the thesis proposes a procedure for the implementation, analysis and improvement of food defense in the supply chain of a food enterprise. The study will consider an approach of business processes and performance measurement systems. The study will highlight the occurrence of the AS-IS-&-TO-BE visions in the business processes that are the most vulnerable to deliberate contamination. We will be taking into account the three links of the food supply chain (supplier-producer-customer). The study focuses on the Bajío, México. 
This proposal is a contribution to the body of work on food safety, using the Enterprise Modeling and the BPM frameworks. It proposes a conceptual framework, a BPM method (elaborated according to existing methods), a modeling technique and a tool (software) for the creation of AS-IS-&-TO-BE models.
The development of a KPI for food defense enable to measure the degree of improvement in the food terrorism vulnerability of business processes between present and future models, and the determination of their impact on other indicators in the links of the supply chain under study.
The following data and results will be obtained to support the proposals for the implementation, the analysis and improvement of food defense in the three links of the food supply chain (suppliers – producers –consumers or logistic service suppliers) in the Bajío, México.