Systems engineering-is it a new discipline?

The article attempts to define three principal areas: firstly, what is a system, secondly what is a project, and thirdly, what is an engineer. Salient points have been extracted that provide an insight into what knowledge a systems engineer must possess. The result of the discussion of what constitutes a project rules out a number of areas that are normally considered as defining parameters, especially by industry; they are cost, time and whether the project is specifiable. The only area that stands a more rigorous examination is the ability to let a contract. This then leads to the necessity to have secondary level definitions of specification, budget and time in order to complete the contract letting process.