Before we begin to address

systems engineering, that is the engineering of a system, we

need to have a brief look at what we mean when we say that something is a system.
Now, this is particularly important
because the word system is perhaps one of the most overused words in
the english language, and that's because the word
system has many contexts. There are physical systems such as solar
systems, river systems, railway systems, satellite systems, communication systems,
information systems, bully systems, nervous systems, just to name a few. And then
there are conceptual systems
such as philosophical systems, social systems, religious systems,
gambling systems, banking systems, systems of government,
and many, many more. The word is even used for more esoteric
examples, such the consideration of individual and social behaviour
as a system of purposeful events. Now, in all this context, the common
aspect of the use of the word system comes from its early meaning and its Greek
root. A system refers to the whole or the set
that results when a number of things have been grouped together in a particular
manner and for a particular reason. What the set is, how it's grouped and for
what reason is context dependent, however. So before we continue,
we should briefly consider what we mean by a system in the particular
context of systems engineering. In systems engineering,
a system can be defined as a set of elements that interact to
achieve a stated purpose. This definition implies that a system
comprises system elements with interconnections or
interactions between those elements, and by the very act of identifying
the system that we're interested in, an external system
boundary has also implied. When we draw the boundary around
selected system elements, we define the system of interest. That system of interest
comprises
those system elements and their interconnections that exist
within our defined system boundary. The purpose of the system
is called its mission, which must be clearly stated by
business management and stakeholders. The mission represents the start point for
the design process, as well as providing the basis for the ultimate test
of a system's fitness or purpose. Once it's been filtered
in the broadest sense, then the mission of the system is to
provide a solution to a business problem. This narrowing of the general use of the
word system is very important because it has two major implications. First, when we
refer to a system
as comprising system elements that are interconnected in order
to achieve a purpose, we imply that all three of those principal
aspects result from conscious choice. That is, we are referring to a system
that has been deliberately designed or engineered, hence our
interesting systems engineering. A system that has been engineered to
perform a specified mission must be able to perform that mission
with relative autonomy. That is, it must be managerially and
operationally independent, and it may well have even been
procured independently. We return to this issue shortly when we
discuss the difference between systems and subsystems, and between systems and
systems of systems. There are numerous ways
to classify systems. Here we identify the four main types in
order to be clear as to which type of system we refer to in systems engineering,
and therefore, on the remainder of this course,
there are closed or open systems. There are natural, human made or
human modified systems. There are physical or conceptual systems. There are
precedented or
unprecedented systems. Let's look at each of those
a little more closely. An open system interacts with
its operating environment. That is, it's open, it accepts inputs from
that environment across its boundary, and returns outputs across the same boundary
back into its external environment. Our closed system, on the other hand,
is isolated from its external environment. We are only interested in useful
systems,
which must therefore be open. Natural systems contain natural elements
and are the result of natural processes. Human made systems come into existence
through the efforts of humans, and may contain some human made elements,
or perhaps some natural elements, adapted to human designed purposes. Natural
systems that
have been modified for human purposes are called
human modified systems. The system engineering for natural systems has certainly
not been conducted by humans. So we are only interested in human made or
human modified systems. Physical systems exist in a physical form,
conceptual systems do not, they're conceptual. Since our focus in systems
engineering
is on engineering a system, things we can actually produce,
we're interested in physical systems. In a precedented system,
similar such systems, or at least the majority of system elements,
have been produced before. An unprecedented system is one
that's not been previously produced. Systems that comprise mostly unprecedented
elements are the result of research and development. Here we're focusing on systems
that
comprise largely precedented elements. That is, those that we have
engineered before, and therefore, those to which system
engineering is most appropriate. Now, based on those four classes of
system, there are a wide variety of combinations that can lead to
a large number of types of systems, each of which has markedly
different properties. But it's important to recognise that in
this course and in systems engineering, we're talking about open physical
systems that are human made or modified from largely
precedented elements. Now, returning to our simple
diagram of the system. Since we're interested in engineering
physical systems that are open, our system of interest must accommodate
external interfaces, that is, inputs and outputs across the system boundary,
connected then to external elements that exists in an external operating
environment, or perhaps a related system. To extend even further, sometimes we need
to be aware of an even wider context. So an SOI might be considered
as part of a wider SOI, a WSOL, which exists within an operating
environment, and that operating environment could be conceived to
even be part of a wider environment. In a physical sense, the term system is
sometimes considered
to be synonymous with product. That is, we say that the project
is delivering a system or it's delivering a product. A system, however, is normally
considered
to comprise a number of products. NCIA 632 sees a system as comprising
operational products or end products, and enabling products, such as test,
training, and disposal products.