Arthur D. Hall

“Systems engineering is most effectively conceived of as a process that starts with the detection of a problem and continues through problem definition, planning and designing of a system, manufacturing or other implementing section, its use, and finally on to its obsolescence. Further, Systems engineering is not a matter of tools alone; It is a careful coordination of process, tools and people.”

“For any given set of objects it is impossible to say that no interrelationships exist.”

“It is time to employ fractal geometry and its associated subjects of chaos and nonlinear dynamics to study systems engineering methodology (SEM). Systematic codification of the former is barely 15 years old, while codification of the latter began 45 years ago... Fractal geometry and chaos theory can convey a new level of understanding to systems engineering and make it more effective”

“The plan of the present paper is to discuss properties of systems more or less abstractly; that is to define system and to describe the properties that are common to many systems and which serve to characterize them all.”

“For any given system, the environment is the set of all objects whose behaviour is influenced by the behaviour of the primary system, and those objects whose behaviour influences the behavior of the primary system.”

“For a given system, the environment is the set of all objects outside the system: (1) a change in whose attributes affect the system and (2) whose attributes are changed by the behavior of the system.”

“Every part of the system is so related to every other part that a change in a particular part causes a changes in all other parts and in the total system”

“Has mankind evolved to a point that there exists, or that with creative additions and re-combinations of modest proportions, there can be shown to be available, a common systems methodology, in terms of which we can conceive of, plan, design, construct, and use systems (procedures, machines, teams of people) of any arbitrary type in the service of mankind, and with low rates of failure?”

“History becomes one model needed to give a rounded view of our subject within the philosophy of hierarchical holographic modeling, defined as using a family of models at several levels to seek understanding of diverse aspects of a subject and thus comprehend the whole.”