Systems engineering is the glue that holds together complex creations and enables them to perform beneficial functions. The current demand for systems engineers outpaces all but a very few other fields, and Gary Langford is eminently qualified to inform those who seek to work or want to work effectively in this crucial endeavor. Engineering Systems Integration: Theory, Metrics, and Methods fills a glaring gap faced when we consider and then carry out systems integration. This book offers a sound approach to planning for systems integration. It treats integration as a fundamental approach based on common-sense rationale. The activities of integration are discussed in a clear and straightforward manner. Gary Langford brings his practical experience in integrating large and small systems to a wide audience in different fields and disciplines. He has woven considerable technical skills honed in industry with the right blend of academics to deliver a much needed and most readable textbook. There is a great need for this book. This title addresses the underlying premises of systems integration and shows how to exposit them into a practical and productive manner. The book prepares systems managers and systems engineers to consider their decisions in light of systems integration metrics. Dreamers may envision our future, but it is the pragmatists who build it. Solve the right problem in the right way, mankind moves forward. Solve the right problem in the wrong way or the wrong problem in the right way, however clever or ingenious the solution, neither credits mankind. Instead, this misfire demonstrates a failure to appreciate a crucial step in pragmatic problem solving: systems integration. The first book to address the underlying premises of systems integration and how to exposit them in a practical and productive manner, Engineering Systems Integration: Theory, Metrics, and Methods looks at the fundamental nature of integration, exposes the subtle premises to achieve integration, and posits a substantial theoretical framework that is both simple and clear. Offering systems managers and systems engineers the framework from which to consider their decisions in light of systems integration metrics, the book isolates two basic questions, 1) Is there a way to express the interplay of human actions and the result of system interactions of a product with its environment?, and 2) Are there methods that combine to improve the integration of systems? The author applies the four axioms of General Systems Theory (holism, decomposition, isomorphism, and models) and explores the domains of history and interpretation to devise a theory of systems integration, develop practical guidance applying the three frameworks, and formulate the mathematical constructs needed for systems integration. The practicalities of integrating parts when we build or analyze systems mandate an analysis and evaluation of existing integrative frameworks of causality and knowledge. Integration is not just a word that describes a best practice, an art, or a single discipline. The act of integrating is an approach, operative in all disciplines, in all we see, in all we do The first book to address the underlying premises of systems integration and how to exposit them into a practical and productive manner, this book prepares systems managers and systems engineers to consider their decisions in light of systems integration metrics. The book addresses two questions: Is there a way to express the interplay of human actions and the result of system interactions of a product with its environment, and are there methods that combine to improve the integration of systems? The systems integration theory and integration frameworks proposed in the book tie General Systems Theory with practice.
