Description :
Engineering Systems is an emerging field that is at the intersection of engineering, management, and the social sciences. Designing complex systems requires not only traditional engineering skills but also knowledge of public policy issues and awareness of societal norms and preference. As scale, scope, and complexity increase, engineers consider technical and social issues together in a highly integrated way as they design flexible, adaptable, robust systems that can be easily modified and reconfigured to satisfy changing requirements and new technological opportunities.
This book offers a comprehensive examination of such systems and the associated emerging field of
study. Through scholarly discussion, concrete examples, and history, the authors consider the engineer’s changing role, new ways to model and analyze these systems, the impacts on engineering education, and the future challenges of meeting human needs through the technologically enabled systems of today and tomorrow.
“I believe that this book is a first. It defines a new and emerging discipline—engineering systems. The authors give us the theories, concepts, and tools that are necessary to situate engineering problems in a broader and fundamentally relevant context, thereby permitting more complete and useful solutions to current challenges.”
John S. Reed, Chairman of the Corporation, MIT
“This book is timely. New thinking is urgently needed in order to manage and thrive in our world of complex systems and systems of systems. Our students, the leaders of tomorrow, must learn and apply engineering systems skills in business, communications, transportation, energy, education, healthcare delivery, public health, and global health. This book marvelously demonstrates why the system-thinking skills required must include the domains of strategic planning, public policy, social sciences, management, and engineering.”
Denis A. Cortese, M.D., Foundation Professor and Director of the Healthcare Delivery and
Policy Program, Arizona State University; President of the Healthcare Transformation Institute;
Emeritus President and CEO of Mayo Clinic