Systems Engineering papers, old and not so old. Readers may observe from these papers how systems engineering has evolved, and perhaps decomposed, over the years from the prizewinning first paper in 1985, Managing Systems Creation, written when in industry—so from a practitioner's, rather than an academic's, viewpoint. Today’s Systems Engineering scarcely resembles the systems engineering of the 20th Century that gave us Nasa’s Apollo, the USN’s Aegis, the UK’s Linesman-Mediator, Lightning and Tornado Interceptors, The Thames Barrier, etc., etc., etc. Gone are the central concepts of “system” and problem-solving, to be replaced by conventional engineering (supposedly ‘engineering of systems’) to meet a customer’s requirement, with the introduction of modelling - as though simulation and modelling had not always been the basis for systems engineering since the beginning… And the de facto demise of the original, powerful, creative and innovative systems engineering is occurring just at a time when real world systems are becoming more complex, interwoven and prone to counter-intuitive behaviour on a grand scale... sic transit gloria mundi.
Systems Engineering circa 1985
Demystifying Systems Engineering (1999)