Establishing
Leadership
in
the Emerging Field of Engineering
Systems
By
Daniel Hastings and Daniel Roos
Reprinted from MIT's Faculty Newsletter,
September/October 2004
In
December 1998, the School of Engineering
established a second new division,
the Engineering Systems Division (ESD),
which focuses on the engineering of
complex systems. ESD's creation responds
to the rapidly evolving field of engineering
where there is a need for the development
of new approaches, frameworks, and
theories to better understand engineering
systems behavior and design. It also
responds to a need within the School
of Engineering for the development
and support of educational programs
on complex systems and design synthesis
that will prepare students for leadership
positions.
To
quote from a recent letter from Dean
Magnanti:
"The
engineering profession today faces
a number of unprecedented challenges,
many reflecting the changed context
in which engineers practice. It is
no longer enough to design a product
or a system without accounting for
the world in which it will operate.
Today, many large-scale, extraordinarily
complicated systems call out for a
systems-driven engineering approach.
Just consider a few of these critical
systems challenges:
- redesigning
transportation systems such as airline,
rail, and urban highway systems
that have increasingly reached their
capacity and created enormous delays;
-
using information technologies to
create products that are more timely,
less expensive, and increasingly
responsive to consumer needs;
-
reconciling the inevitable growth
in world-wide energy demand with
potential environmental costs;
-
creating product development systems
that address the full spectrum of
conceiving, designing, and developing
a new product; and
-
developing manufacturing systems
that are more attuned to the human
impacts they generate, from wage
attenuation and job losses to dislocations
linked to globalization.
At
MIT, our role is to help meet these
and other societal needs, through
leadership grounded in technical excellence
and innovation. Indeed, we feel an
obligation to focus our attention
on addressing these challenging issues.
We believe that the converging forces
of increased system complexity and
the social impact of technology -
combined with a need for increased
leadership by engineers - create opportunities
for new directions in engineering
education and practice. The most successful
engineers must possess superb professional
skills as engineers, including a keen
understanding of social, regulatory,
environmental, cultural, and other
forces. In short . . . we need Engineering
Systems."
To
fully appreciate complex engineering
systems requires an integrative holistic
view that bridges traditional engineering
approaches with insights from management
and social science.
Therefore,
ESD is an integrative effort that
cuts across the School of Engineering
departments, the Sloan School of Management,
and the School of Humanities and Social
Sciences. The Division has over 40
faculty members including two Institute
Professors (Joel Moses and Sheila
Widnall). All ESD faculty have either
a joint or dual appointment with another
academic unit. [The dual faculty appointment
was introduced when the two new Divisions
were formed in the School of Engineering.
Dual faculty share their time equally
between two units; the division and
a department.] These shared appointments
enable ESD faculty to work with their
engineering departments on system
related initiatives.
Overall,
the Division provides an institutional
framework and intellectual home for
engineering systems faculty to develop
and support system oriented educational
and research programs, facilitate
the admission of students to various
interdisciplinary academic programs,
and provide governance on key issues
such as faculty hires, promotion,
and tenure.
ESD
brings together several systems-oriented
educational professional programs
and research centers that were developed
at MIT over the past several decades.
Five Master's-level interdisciplinary
professional practice educational
programs at the Institute are serving
over 300 students today. These programs
include Leaders for Manufacturing
(LFM), System Design and Management
(SDM), Technology and Policy Program
(TPP), ESD SM, and Master of Engineering
in Logistics (MLOG). The ESD research
centers are the Center for Innovation
in Product Development (CIPD), Center
for Technology, Policy and Industrial
Development (CTPID), and Center for
Transportation & Logistics (CTL).
Like the ESD academic programs, these
centers are interdisciplinary, involving
faculty from engineering, management,
and the social sciences.
ESD
builds upon these pre-existing educational
programs and research centers. The
mission of the Division is to create
a new field of study and to broaden
Engineering education and practice.
To accomplish this mission ESD has
launched several new educational and
research initiatives described below.
ESD
Ph.D.
ESD received approval from the MIT
faculty in 2003 to offer a Doctoral
program. The mission of the program
is to undertake fundamental in-depth
research oriented around theory, policy,
and practice associated with engineering
systems. All doctoral students take
a core composed of courses in system
theory, quantitative methods, and
socio/technical contexts. The ESD
PhD acquired the interdisciplinary
Technology, Policy and Management
(TMP) PhD. It currently has some 40
doctoral students including students
from the legacy TMP program.
The
Engineering Systems Symposium
On March 29-31, 2004, the Engineering
Systems Symposium brought over 360
leading academics, industry, and government
representatives, and students to MIT
to learn about the emerging field
of Engineering Systems and to consider
ways to work together. In the opening
session, Dr. Vest noted, "This
is a remarkable, perhaps historic,
event of great import to engineering
education and to our Institution.
If we are to continue to be a great
Engineering school in the future and
help address complex problems like
anti-terrorism, the Columbia Shuttle
tragedy, globalization and sustainability
in ways that benefit humankind, we
will need to be great in Engineering
Systems." In addition to Dr.
Vest, speakers included MIT School
of Engineering Dean Thomas Magnanti;
Institute Professor Sheila Widnall;
William Wulf, president of the National
Academy of Engineering, Dr. Joseph
Bordogna, deputy director of the National
Science Foundation, and Travis Engen,
president of Alcan. Several of the
presentations are available on MIT
World at http://mitworld.mit.edu/series/57/.
A
key feature of the Symposium was the
release of the Engineering Systems
Monograph by ESD faculty and staff.
In addition to a paper by Dan Roos
on the history leading to ESD's creation
and a paper by Daniel Hastings on
ESD's future and the creation of Engineering
Systems leaders, there are six papers
on the foundations of Engineering
Systems. A framing paper on foundational
issues by Joel Moses is followed by
five papers on various aspects of
the field. Dan Whitney was principal
author of a paper on systems architecture,
Richard de Neufville played a similar
role in a paper on uncertainty, Tom
Allen wrote on enterprise systems,
David Marks on sustainability, and
Nancy Leveson on systems safety. The
Monograph papers can be found at http://esd.mit.edu/symposium/monograph/.
The remaining papers presented at
the Symposium can be viewed at http://esd.mit.edu/symposium/agenda_day3.htm.
At
the Symposium, Dan Roos announced
that over 20 of the top engineering
schools in the U.S. and Europe have
agreed to work collaboratively to
define and evolve the field of Engineering
Systems by sharing educational materials
and information on job opportunities
for PhDs in Engineering Systems, and
holding inter-university student colloquia.
New
Research
ESD's TPP program, along with the
Center for International Studies (CIS),
the Department of Political Science,
and the Science, Technology, and Society
(STS) program was awarded $2.9 million
from the National Science Foundation's
prestigious Integrative Graduate Education
and Research Traineeship (IGERT) Program
for a multidisciplinary program on
assessing effects of emerging technologies.
The
Program on Emerging Technologies (PoET)
is led by four principal investigators:
ESD/TPP's Daniel Hastings and Dava
Newman; Kenneth Oye of the Department
of Political Science, ESD, and CIS,
and Merritt Roe Smith of STS. A workshop
entitled "Emerging Technologies:
Recognizing Uncertainty and Assessing
Implications" (also the fourth
annual TPP symposium) was held on
April 12, 2004. More information is
available at http://poet.mit.edu/igert.htm.
ESD's
Center for Transportation & Logistics
signed a multi-year, multi-million
dollar agreement with the government
of Aragón, Spain, to help create
an international education and research
program in logistics and supply chain
management. The MIT-Zaragoza International
Logistics Program is part of a large-scale
initiative to develop the Aragón
region of Spain, around its capital
city of Zaragoza, into a significant
logistics center in Europe. The MIT-Zaragoza
International Logistics Program is
the Center's flagship effort. In addition
to conducting cutting-edge research,
CTL will work with the Zaragoza Logistics
Center to offer graduate and executive
education in logistics to students
from around the world. The offerings
will include a Master's degree modeled
on MIT's Master of Engineering in
Logistics (MLOG), a Doctoral degree,
and a set of executive education courses
leading to certificates in various
logistics-related disciplines.
The
Future
ESD is working concertedly to build
upon this foundation and to strengthen
its leadership position. With our
interdisciplinary faculty, new PhD
program and research programs, we
have laid the groundwork for continuing
to define and develop the new field
of Engineering Systems. However, there
is much work to be done. We have made
an excellent start on defining the
intellectual foundations of engineering
systems and in the future years we
will deliver on that promise. ESD
is taking a leadership role in engaging
the extended community, including
students, faculty, alums, partner
companies, and staff within ESD, and
reaching out into the world of academia,
government, and industry at large.
We are building a lifelong learning
community that encourages active and
sustained partnership from all of
our constituencies over the short
and long term.
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