Abstract :
The paper tries to suggest on the one hand that emergence is primary among systemic principles, encompassing all others, and on the other hand that emergency aptly characterises society´s present need for methods for effective systems integration. The paper tries to clarify problems (rather than present solution), and concentrates on two. They correspond to the twin themes of emergence and emergency. (1) What should be the distinctive principle of systems engineering? All engineering products can be regarded as systems, and all engineering might thus be regarded as the engineering of systems; but it would be wrong to conclude that all engineering is, or should be, systems engineering. Rather systems engineering seems to mean a particular approach to the engineering of systems, an approach which is appropriate in certain circumstances and which pays special attention to systemic principle. What is this principle? What does it mean for engineering to be systemic? (2) What should be the distinctive method of systems engineering? Specific to every branch of engineering is a set of methods used by its practitioners to model problems sand solutions, and to manipulate those models for purposes of analysis, simulation etc. These methods of modelling and model manipulation are developed from a science, or body of theory, appropriate to the particular branch of engineering. There should correspondingly be a body of systemic method, at once theory-based and pragmatic, to support the practice of systems engineering. What is this method? What does it take for engineering to be systematic?
