An organizations ability to effectively create, deploy and use system integration frameworks is a discriminating technical capability which will continue to grow in importance for the design, development and deployment of future engineered systems. Engineering activities utilized in large‐scale systems integration processes are strongly associated with organized problem solving and complexity reduction. This paper outlines the relationships between systems, meta‐systems, and integration frameworks as well as complexity measures, reduction and management. The primary thesis of this paper relates to the design and use of integration frameworks as a fundamental means of complexity reduction. A system “abstraction frame” concept is presented and related to classical systems engineering mathematics and practices. A proposal for a systems engineering language completes the content of this paper. A formal systems engineering language will greatly reduce complexity in the practice of systems engineering, as well as facilitate the solution of even more complex problems.