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Transdisciplinarity pp 105–130Cite as

Systems View in Engineering Research

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Part of the book series: Integrated Science ((IS,volume 5))

Summary

During the last 50 years, the world population has increased by over 110%, when sustainable development would have permitted only a 25% increase. This is clear evidence that global problems are complex, and we need a holistic system view to solve them. We present a tutorial survey on system view in engineering research to facilitate using these ideas in other disciplines, specifically in the topical efforts to build systems that tackle sustainable development challenges. A system is a set of parts and their relationships. The core idea is to build smart systems that optimize resource usage equitably. We present the incommensurable basic resources used by a system and methods to measure its efficiency. We also present the general principles used in smart systems to achieve efficient operation, including control, feedback, optimization and decision making, hierarchy, and degree of centralization. We identify the tragedy of the commons as the main obstacle for sustainable development as it causes overuse of common and free resources. We discuss some open system-level problems and present ideas on applying systems thinking to solve complex problems. Our major conclusion is the need to use subsidiarity combining weak centralized, hierarchical control and relative autonomy to solve the tragedy of the commons.

The idea of closed-loop (negative feedback) control as a core of smart systems. The goal is given by a human actor.

The code of this chapter is 01010011 01111001 01110011 01110100 01100101 01101101 01110011.

“There is at least a reasonable hope that human evaluations will change toward a survival pattern and that this will happen in the world as a total system”.

Kenneth E. Boulding

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Acknowledgements

Discussions with Adrian Kotelba and Kari Leppälä are acknowledged. Jukka Riekki was financially supported by the Academy of Finland 6G Flagship grant 318927.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, PO Box 1100, 90571, Oulu, Finland

    Aarne Mämmelä

  2. University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland

    Jukka Riekki

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  1. Aarne Mämmelä
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  2. Jukka Riekki
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Correspondence to Aarne Mämmelä .

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  1. Universal Scientific Education and Research Network (USERN), Stockholm, Sweden

    Nima Rezaei

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Mämmelä, A., Riekki, J. (2022). Systems View in Engineering Research. In: Rezaei, N. (eds) Transdisciplinarity. Integrated Science, vol 5. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94651-7_6

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