TY - GEN
T1 - Systems Engineering Defined
AU - Haugerud, Vegard
AU - Mansouri, Mo
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 IEEE.
PY - 2021/4/15
Y1 - 2021/4/15
N2 - Systems engineering is widely believed to be both critical and beneficial in dealing with complex problems, from its origin until today. Despite this, however, what the term 'systems engineering' represents has been the cause of discussions and confusion for a long time. This paper briefly describes the history of systems engineering and its applications, before looking at the problems associated with defining systems engineering and problems associated with already established definitions of the term. This is achieved by reviewing systems engineering definitions found through a collection of a variety of systems engineering literature, including definitions defined by systems engineering standards, the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE), and the Systems Engineering Body of Knowledge (SEBoK). These definitions are reviewed from a systems thinking perspective while applying systems thinking tools and methods. This paper gathers a collection of key components distilled from the different definitions and their respective literature. The key components are then being considered both individually and holistically before they are integrated to form a new definition of systems engineering, presented at the end of the paper. The propose of the new definition together with a corresponding systemigram is to eliminate some of the confusion associated with systems engineering.
AB - Systems engineering is widely believed to be both critical and beneficial in dealing with complex problems, from its origin until today. Despite this, however, what the term 'systems engineering' represents has been the cause of discussions and confusion for a long time. This paper briefly describes the history of systems engineering and its applications, before looking at the problems associated with defining systems engineering and problems associated with already established definitions of the term. This is achieved by reviewing systems engineering definitions found through a collection of a variety of systems engineering literature, including definitions defined by systems engineering standards, the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE), and the Systems Engineering Body of Knowledge (SEBoK). These definitions are reviewed from a systems thinking perspective while applying systems thinking tools and methods. This paper gathers a collection of key components distilled from the different definitions and their respective literature. The key components are then being considered both individually and holistically before they are integrated to form a new definition of systems engineering, presented at the end of the paper. The propose of the new definition together with a corresponding systemigram is to eliminate some of the confusion associated with systems engineering.
KW - Systems engineering
KW - definition
KW - systemigram
KW - systems thinking
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85124408974&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1109/SysCon48628.2021.9690696
DO - 10.1109/SysCon48628.2021.9690696
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85124408974
T3 - 15th Annual IEEE International Systems Conference, SysCon 2021 - Proceedings
BT - 15th Annual IEEE International Systems Conference, SysCon 2021 - Proceedings
T2 - 15th Annual IEEE International Systems Conference, SysCon 2021
Y2 - 15 April 2021 through 15 May 2021
ER -