A Governance Perspective for System-of-Systems

Abstract

The operating landscape of 21st century systems is characteristically ambiguous, emergent, and uncertain. These characteristics affect the capacity and performance of engineered systems/enterprises. In response, there are increasing calls for multidisciplinary approaches capable of confronting increasingly ambiguous, emergent, and uncertain systems. System of Systems Engineering (SoSE) is an example of such an approach. A key aspect of SoSE is the coordination and the integration of systems to enable ‘system-of-systems’ capabilities greater than the sum of the capabilities of the constituent systems. However, there is a lack of qualitative studies exploring how coordination and integration are achieved. The objective of this research is to revisit SoSE utility as a potential multidisciplinary approach and to suggest ‘governance’ as the basis for enabling ‘system-of-systems’ coordination and integration. In this case, ‘governance’ is concerned with direction, oversight, and accountability of ‘system-of-systems.’ ‘Complex System Governance’ is a new and novel basis for improving ‘system-of-system’ performance through purposeful design, execution, and evolution of essential metasystem functions.’

Simulation-Based Engineering of Heterogeneous Collaborative Systems—A Novel Conceptual Framework

“…Formulation of a novel taxonomy of indicators that crosscorrelates sustainability with smartness is at the core of [18]. The author proposes four main indicator categories: socio-cultural (11), economic (6), environmental (6), and governance (5), with a total number of 28 associated indicators.…”

“…Addressing the operating context of collaborating systems through a system-ofsystems (SoS) paradigm is fundamental in contemporary interoperability and integration approaches. The authors of [5] conclude that, although complex system management methodological approaches are broadly available, the main problem is that none possess firm success guarantees. Whether the particular methodology application would result in failure or success is not the consequence of proper selection.…”

“…It dominantly depends on the operational context. Besides the well-known SoS obstacles (holism, uncertainty, ambiguity, context-dependency, emergence, statelessness, and monotonic characteristics), the importance of governance in regular operation and disaster recovery situations is crucial [5]. In [6], through the elaboration on Collective Adaptive Systems (CAS), the authors emphasized the importance of humans as unavoidable constituents of distributed cyber-physical systems.…”

Rumo a um Modelo Conceitual para Governança de Sistemas-de-Sistemas

“…Assim, há um grau considerável de incerteza e natureza holística, que acrescentam um nível adicional de desafio para gerenciar os interesses dos envolvidos [Keating and Katina 2019]. Neste contexto, a governanc ¸a de SoS vem ganhando atenc ¸ão [Katina et al 2019b, Imamura et al 2020, pois fornece a estrutura para gerenciar esses sistemas, além de permitir que os constituintes associados atendam a um conjunto de diretrizes e cumpram critérios de qualidade específicos, potencialmente entregando resultados que beneficiam as organizac ¸ões envolvidas. SoS podem então se beneficiar da governanc ¸a, no sentido de direcionar, coordenar e controlar as atividades deste tipo de sistema, auxiliando no alcance de seus objetivos.…”

A Unique Transdisciplinary Engineering-Based Integrated Approach for the Design of Temporary Refugee Housing Using Kano, HOQ/QFD, TRIZ, AD, ISM and DSM Tools

“…There exist several approaches to addressing large-scale or complex problems [4]. These various engineering approaches are specifically designed to enhance the value of, and reduce the time synthesizing, the potential solution set for resolving complex and large-scale problems.…”