ENGINEERING SUSTAINABLE COMPLEX SYSTEMS

Received: 7 October 2013 Abstract Accepted: 5 November 2013 Given the most competitive nature of global business environment, effective engineering innovation is a critical requirement for all levels of system lifecycle development. The society and community expectations have increased beyond environmental short term impacts to global long term sustainability approach. Sustainability and engineering competence skills are extremely important due to a general shortage of engineering talent and the need for mobility of highly trained professionals [1]. Engineering sustainable complex systems is extremely important in view of the general shortage of resources and talents. Engineers implement new technologies and processes to avoid the negative environmental, societal and economic impacts. Systems thinking help engineers and designers address sustainable development issues with a global focus using leadership and excellence. This paper introduces the Systems Engineering (SE) methodology for designing complex and more sustainable business and industrial solutions, with emphasis on engineering excellence and leadership as key drivers for business sustainability. The considerable advancements achieved in complex systems engineering indicate that the adaptation of sustainable SE to business needs can lead to highly sophisticated yet widely useable collaborative applications, which will ensure the sustainability of limited resources such as energy and clean water. The SE design approach proves critical in maintaining skills needed in future capable workforce. Two factors emerged to have the greatest impact on the competitiveness and sustainability of complex systems and these were: improving skills and performance in engineering and design, and adopting SE and human systems integration (HSI) methodology to support sustainability in systems development. Additionally, this paper provides a case study for the application of SE and HSI methodology for engineering sustainable and complex systems.

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