Workshop: Investigation of the Theoretical Foundations in Systems Engineering; Frost, West Virginia; October 2015

在过去的四十年里，系统工程作为一种系统化的方法发展到复杂系统的工程。虽然系统工程的实践已经产生了许多成功的系统，但这种实践背后的理论还没有完全发展起来。本研讨会旨在提供对系统工程理论基础的调查。从长远来看，这将对系统工程的实践、教育和推广产生影响。在目前的实践中，广泛需要受过良好教育的系统工程师，他们在解决与复杂工程系统相关的设计和生产问题时表现出灵活性和能力。该领域理论基础的发现将是在解决与更好设计的工程系统和改进的系统工程以及教育和外联方案有关的社会需求方面向前迈出的一步。这次研讨会的目的是调查和确定与风险管理或贸易空间探索等许多基本推动力领域中的一个有关的系统工程的理论基础。为了实现这一目标，研讨会参与者将遵循一种方法，解决文献中的理论空白，定义一个公理框架，建议可以从其他学科借鉴的东西，调查主要领域之间的协同作用，并将理论基础与社会需求联系起来。如果成功，可以使用和扩大本讲习班所采用的办法，以便在今后处理更多的推进领域。这将允许建立严格的理论框架，随后可以通过扎实的实地调查进行检验。

Systems engineering has evolved over the last forty years as a systematic approach towards the engineering of complex systems. While the practice of systems engineering has resulted in many successful systems, the theory underlying this practice has not yet been fully developed. This workshop aims to provide an investigation of the theoretical foundations of systems engineering. Over the long-term this will have implications for the practice, education, and outreach of systems engineering. In the current practice there is a wide spread need to have well educated systems engineers that exhibit flexibility and capability when addressing the design and production issues associated with complex engineered systems. The discovery of the theoretical foundations of the field will be a step forward in addressing societal needs related to better designed engineered systems and improved systems engineering and educational and outreach programs.The objective of this workshop is to investigate and define theoretical foundations for systems engineering with respect to one among many fundamental thrust areas such as risk management or trade-space exploration. To achieve this objective, the workshop participants will follow an approach that will address theoretical gaps in the literature, define an axiomatic framework, suggest what can be borrowed from other disciplines, investigate synergies among thrust areas and link the theoretical foundations to societal needs. If successful, the approach followed in this workshop can be used and augmented to address additional thrust areas in the future. This will allow for the creation of rigorous theoretical frameworks that can subsequently be tested with solid empirical fieldwork.