Engineering Systems: Meeting Human Needs in a Complex Technological World

Engineering, for much of the twentieth century, was mainly about artifacts and
inventions. Now, it's increasingly about complex systems. As the airplane taxis to the gate, you
access the Internet and check email with your PDA, linking the communication and transportation
systems. At home, you recharge your plug-in hybrid vehicle, linking transportation to the
electricity grid. Today's large-scale, highly complex sociotechnical systems converge, interact, and
depend on each other in ways engineers of old could barely have imagined. As scale, scope, and
complexity increase, engineers consider technical and social issues together in a highly integrated
way as they design flexible, adaptable, robust systems that can be easily modified and reconfigured
to satisfy changing requirements and new technological opportunities.Engineering Systems offers a
comprehensive examination of such systems and the associated emerging field of study. Through
scholarly discussion, concrete examples, and history, the authors consider the engineer's changing
role, new ways to model and analyze these systems, the impacts on engineering education, and the
future challenges of meeting human needs through the technologically enabled systems of today and
tomorrow.