Systems engineering

Systems engineering is an interdisciplinary field of engineering that focuses on how to design and manage complex engineering systems over their life cycles. Issues such as requirements engineering, reliability, logistics, coordination of different teams, testing and evaluation, maintainability and many other disciplines necessary for successful system development, design, implementation, and ultimate decommission become more difficult when dealing with large or complex projects. Systems engineering deals with work-processes, optimization methods, and risk management tools in such projects. It overlaps technical and human-centered disciplines such as control engineering, industrial engineering, software engineering, organizational studies, and project management. Systems engineering ensures that all likely aspects of a project or system are considered, and integrated into a whole.

The systems engineering process is a discovery process that is quite unlike a manufacturing process. A manufacturing process is focused on repetitive activities that achieve high quality outputs with minimum cost and time. The systems engineering process must begin by discovering the real problems that need to be resolved, and identify the most probable or highest impact failures that can occur - systems engineering involves finding elegant solutions to these problems.

Soft systems methodology

Soft systems methodology (SSM) is an approach to organizational process modeling (business process modeling) and it can be used both for general problem solving and in the management of change. It was developed in England by academics at the University of Lancaster Systems Department through a ten year action research program.

Overview

The methodology was developed from earlier systems engineering approaches, primarily by Peter Checkland and colleagues such as Brian Wilson . The primary use of SSM is in the analysis of complex situations where there are divergent views about the definition of the problem — "soft problems" (e.g. How to improve health services delivery; How to manage disaster planning; When should mentally disordered offenders be diverted from custody? What to do about homelessness amongst young people?).

In such situations even the actual problem to be addressed may not be easy to agree upon. To intervene in such situations the soft systems approach uses the notion of a "system" as an interrogative device that will enable debate amongst concerned parties. In its 'classic' form the methodology consists of seven steps, with initial appreciation of the problem situation leading to the modelling of several human activity systems that might be thought relevant to the problem situation. By discussions and exploration of these, the decision makers will arrive at accommodations (or, exceptionally, at consensus) over what kind of changes may be systemically desirable and feasible in the situation. Later explanations of the ideas give a more sophisticated view of this systemic method, and give more attention to locating the methodology in respect to its philosophical underpinnings. It is the earlier classical view which is most widely used in practice.