Between inspection and innovation the central role of the peer review in systems engineering

Few would argue against the idea that the dominant focus for both researchers and practitioners in the decades following World War II centered on quality control and operational efficiency. In the last twenty years, however, this focus has shifted to organizational innovation and product differentiation strategies in an increasingly competitive market environment. However as this pendulum has swung from one side to the other it passed over organizational activities that I will argue are no less important to organizational effectiveness. In this paper the engineering peer review is presented as an organizational activity that is critical to the success of products in highly complex systems engineering or systems-of-systems environments. Empirical data from peer reviews and a cybernetic framework are used to highlight the unique role these reviews play in the design of complex systems as well as helping to differentiate these activities from quality control (inspection) and innovation. Implications for both theory and practice are discussed.