No matter what field you are working in or studying, Advanced Systems Thinking, Engineering, and Management offers you a comprehensive understanding of systems ideas and methods to help you achieve unmatched success with your challenging projects. This unique resource helps you add a systems-scientific grounding to systems engineering enterprises, showing you how to solve intractable problems, design systems to accommodate complex environments, and manage both creative and operational systems. You learn how to conceive, design and manage a systems engineering process for optimal results. The book is filled with examples and case studies from a wide range of areas, from integrated transport systems, security systems, and defense procurement, to missile defense architectures, famine relief, and managing markets. This innovative reference introduces a generic systems lifecycle theory that helps you understand how systems form, persist and decay, and presents a 5-layer classification for systems engineering. You discover how to use a generic reference model that allows systems of all types to be addressed within a common framework. Moreover, the book reveals how architecture is used to create system emergent properties, capabilities and behaviors.
Preface.; Part A: Systems Philosophy, Systems Science The Need for, and Value of, Systems - The Book as a System. Origins of Systems Science. Identifying and Defining a System.; Measure for Measure - Measuring Value. Measuring Properties, Capabilities and Behaviors. Genetic Algorithmic Methods of Adjustment. Optimizing Measures. ; The Human Element - Categorization. Motivation, Instinct, and Inheritance. Intelligence and Behavior. Belief Systems. Resistance to Change. Decision-Making. Perceived Entropy Reduction.; Systems Engineering Philosophy - Holism and Emergence. Problem-Solving. Perceptions of Connectedness. Systems of Systems. Systems of Systems in Defense. Systems Engineering Philosophy in Methods.; A Theory of Complexity - Characterizing Complexity. Elaboration. Encapsulation. Variety. Generation of Variety. Energy, Source of Variety. Open Systems Interactions and a proposed empirical Law of Open System Dynamics.; Systems Lifecycle Theory -Introduction. The Seven Principles of Open Systems. Synthesizing the System Lifecycle. Applying Lifecycle Theory.; The Social Genotype -Introduction. Change and the Social Genotype. Military and the Social Genotype. Systems Engineering and the Social Genotype.; Part B: Systems Thinking Tools and Methods for Systems Thinking - About Systems Thinking. Causal Loop Modeling. N2 Charts. Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM). R-Nets. Behavior Diagramming. Soft Methods. TRIAD Building System. The Generic Reference Model (GRM). Characterizing a System. Non-Linear Dynamic System Synthesis.; System Thinking at Work - Cases - The Doctors ' Surgery. Hospital Waiting Time. Societal Power. National Energy Strategy. The Railway Dilemma. Computing Integrity. Crime Management. Defense Acquisition. Building Pyramids. Architectonicsëthe Study of Architecture. Systems EngineeringëThe Costs of Rework.; Part C: System Engineering System Concept and Design - System Solutions. Developing System Conceptsëthe Seven-Step Continuum. System Design. Design of Operation. Industrial Design Paradigms. Designing Open, Interactive Systems. Design Capability Ratcheting. Operational Design Approach (ODA). Advanced Design Methods. ; Classification of Systems Engineering ë Defining Systems Engineering. The Five Layer System Structure. Level 1: Artifact Systems Engineering. Level 2: Project Systems Engineering. Level 3: Business Systems Engineering. Level 4: Industry Systems Engineering. Level 5: Socio-Economic Systems Engineering. Science-Based Systems Engineering.; From Systems Thinking to Systems in Operation - Systems Thinkingëabout Systems Engineering. Identifying the Stream. The End-to-End Life-Cycle Process. SE Goals and Objectives. Developing Structural Support. Accommodating Legacy and Change.; Operational Systems Engineering - Operational Systems Engineering. Socio-Economic Systems Engineering.; Part D: Systems Management & Organization Managing Systems - Managing Systems Concepts. Organized Management Systems. Systems Organization at Industry Level 4. Creating the Culture. Project Management vs. Systems Engineering. To Phase or Not to Phase. Elicitation and Requirements. Project vs. Functional vs. Matrix Organization. Maintaining the Edge.; Societal Systems Evol;
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Derek K. Hitchins
Derek K. Hitchins is now a part-time consultant, teacher, visiting professor and international lecturer. Formerly, he held the British Aerospace Chairs in Systems Science and in Command and Control, Cranfield University at RMCS Shrivenham, and before that the Chair in Engineering Management at City University, London, England. Professor Hitchins earned his Ph.D. in Systems Science at City University, London.