“…It will not matter whether the system is purely technical or of a complex sociotechnical nature, SE will be able to guide interventions successfully because it will have at its disposal laws and principles that are common to all system types. Rousseau (2020) accepts that, during the developmental period of such a systems science, SE may have to seek help from ‘problem structuring methods’ (PSMs), presumably if there are divergent perspectives between stakeholders. However: With that said, I do believe that a fully fledged GST* would bring scientific theoretical insights that could also inform the PSMs in due course (2020, p. 189).…”
Section: Reflections On the Future Of Sementioning
confidence: 99%
“…With that said, I do believe that a fully fledged GST* would bring scientific theoretical insights that could also inform the PSMs in due course (2020, p. 189).…”
Section: Reflections On the Future Of Sementioning
The International Council on Systems Engineering has long declared a wish to extend the scope of application of systems engineering from its traditional sphere of complex technical systems to more complex sociotechnical systems. The Segura River reclamation project was a successful systems engineering project, involving water treatment and management and environmental regeneration, which falls squarely into the latter category. Taking lessons from this project, the paper sets out to understand the circumstances in which systems engineering can be successful in guiding and managing interventions in nontraditional domains such as transportation, housing, infrastructure, health and environmental systems. This involves an analysis using critical systems thinking. The paper also seeks to suggest how systems engineering must change to ensure success in circumstances that are less propitious for its theory and practice than in the Segura case.
“…It will not matter whether the system is purely technical or of a complex sociotechnical nature, SE will be able to guide interventions successfully because it will have at its disposal laws and principles that are common to all system types. Rousseau (2020) accepts that, during the developmental period of such a systems science, SE may have to seek help from ‘problem structuring methods’ (PSMs), presumably if there are divergent perspectives between stakeholders. However: With that said, I do believe that a fully fledged GST* would bring scientific theoretical insights that could also inform the PSMs in due course (2020, p. 189).…”
Section: Reflections On the Future Of Sementioning
confidence: 99%
“…With that said, I do believe that a fully fledged GST* would bring scientific theoretical insights that could also inform the PSMs in due course (2020, p. 189).…”
Section: Reflections On the Future Of Sementioning
The International Council on Systems Engineering has long declared a wish to extend the scope of application of systems engineering from its traditional sphere of complex technical systems to more complex sociotechnical systems. The Segura River reclamation project was a successful systems engineering project, involving water treatment and management and environmental regeneration, which falls squarely into the latter category. Taking lessons from this project, the paper sets out to understand the circumstances in which systems engineering can be successful in guiding and managing interventions in nontraditional domains such as transportation, housing, infrastructure, health and environmental systems. This involves an analysis using critical systems thinking. The paper also seeks to suggest how systems engineering must change to ensure success in circumstances that are less propitious for its theory and practice than in the Segura case.
“…This paper targets researchers and practitioners alike. The systems engineering community has identified a growing interest in establishing the scientific foundations or theory of systems engineering, both led by the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) 15,16 and the National Science Foundation (NSF) 17–19 . Noting that “the rigor and precision of a science is measured … by the extent to which its formulations are free from statement compounds of non‐truth‐functional kinds,” 20 I contend that formalizing requirement engineering concepts that have been traditionally defined based on individual practices with a systems‐theoretic underpinning is of direct benefit for the systems engineering research community.…”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…14 This paper targets researchers and practitioners alike. The systems engineering community has identified a growing interest in establishing the scientific foundations or theory of systems engineering, both led by the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) 15,16 and the National Science Foundation (NSF). [17][18][19] Noting that "the rigor and precision of a science is measured .…”
The literature shows disparities in how fundamental systems engineering concepts in the area of requirements engineering, such as stakeholder needs, system requirements, requirements elicitation, requirements derivation, and requirements decomposition, are used within the communities‐of‐practice and in research. Such disparities can lead to conceptual and application inconsistencies, which have been shown to contribute to the formulation of poor requirements. In this paper, such concepts are articulated using systems theory as the underlying theoretical framework. The concepts of problem space, solution space, open system, and closed system are central to this work. It is argued that the proposed articulations facilitate avoiding usage disparity, ultimately resulting in better formulation of requirements. These articulations are supported by in‐depth examples that comprehensively cover different types of needs and requirements, and provide step‐by‐step insights into how elicitation, derivation, and decomposition occur within a problem formulation effort.
“…Several efforts in that direction were initiated several decades ago, including von Bertalanffy's General Systems Theory [6], Weiner's Cybernetics [7], Mesarovic and Takahara's general [8] and abstract systems [9] theories, Zeigler's computational systems theory [10], and Wymore's Mathematical Theory of Systems Engineering [11]; after which no other contribution at such scale has been completed. The SE community did not ground its practice upon such foundation at the time and is reclaiming now a new wave of research to unveil the theoretical foundations of SE [12][13][14][15][16][17]. This vision aligns with that of the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE), which has called for SE to "be grounded in more rigorous foundations of mathematics" [1].…”
The objective of this research article is to re-introduce some of the concepts provided by A. Wayne Wymore in his mathematical theory of Model-Based Systems Engineering, discuss why his framework might have not been adopted, and define a potential path to modernize the framework for practical application in the digital age. The dense mathematical theory has never been converted to a practical form. We propose a path to modernization by creating a metamodel of Wymore’s mathematical theory of MBSE. This enables explaining the concepts in simple to understand terms and shows the internal consistency provided by the theory. Furthermore, the metamodel allows for conversion of the theory into software application, for which we show some initial results that open the research to the art of the possible. In recognition of limitation of the theory, we make the case for a merger of the theoretical framework with the enhanced formalism of Discrete Event System Specification (DEVS). This will establish a path toward the scientific foundations for MBSE to enable future implementations of the complementary pairing and their empirical results.
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