What are some practical applications of engineering systems research?
Engineering systems research tackles real-life challenges, addressing issues such as rebuilding critical infrastructures, working toward energy sustainability and security, and managing global supply chains. To understand complex systems, one must look at many phenomena that are not considered to be an inherent aspect of engineering, and that require broader knowledge. As practitioners of Engineering Systems and systems thinking, we focus on engineering solutions that combine approaches from science, management, and the social sciences to take a long-term, lifecycle view of systems. We account for multiple stakeholder perspectives. And we explore flexibility, robustness, scalability, safety, security, durability, sustainability, reliability, recyclability, and maintainability — the system qualities often left out of traditional analysis, but critical to developing lasting solutions.
