Introduction to systems engineering - General concepts

Systems engineering encompasses all the activities involved in designing, developing and upgrading a set of products, processes and human skills, providing a cost-effective, high-performance solution to the needs expressed. It does not claim to provide the only solution to a given problem, but proposes an approach based on processes, tools and standards, to transform a need into a solution.

It applies to any artificial system, whatever its complexity and context of use. To illustrate the concepts, examples will be developed as the concepts are introduced.

Following a general introduction to systems engineering, this article looks at the main concepts involved. The article [S 7 301] discusses the implementation of systems engineering, first from a theoretical point of view, then through a case study.