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AbstractEngineering activity possess robust methods for designing, realizing, and managing complex engineered systems. As engineered systems become more complex, engineering activity's complexity is growing along with it. Current engineering management tools and methods, although they serve well for many engineering activities, begin to fail when the complexity of the engineered systems exceeds a threshold. Part of the problem is that social, organizational, and psychological sciences have been integrated in limited capacity into engineering activity. Further, the methods and tools for managing engineering activities tend to be rigid and often do not adapt well to complex engineering environments. To address these limitations, the author proposes for the use of the purposeful human activity systems framework as a systems perspective on engineering activity. The framework provides a flexible approach to managing engineering activity by enabling the selection and application and effectiveness measurement of the best social, organizational, and psychological methods and tools according to the specific needs of the engineering organization.

AbstractCurrent systems analysis approaches often lack the necessary clarity to capture details relating to the interactions of systems, defining arbitrary system boundaries, and expanding boundaries to capture interactions of interest. This paper proposes a new approach for identifying and defining system boundaries based on system‐level properties that can be defined in any system. The research proposes a unification of methodological understandings between systems analysis and applied category theory to bring further mathematical rigor to abstract system boundaries and interactions. This unification is demonstrated by the expansion of systemic interactions between an individual and an organization that employs them, periodically integrating applied category theory concepts to expand the scope of modelled information. We conclude with a call to action to further define the applications of applied category theory to systems analysis and to apply the rigorous practices that exist in the field to further the advancement of methods for modelling the exploration of systemic interactions.

AbstractThe system of communication plays a critical role in the design, management and change management of purposeful human activity systems. This occurs not only in the verbal and written form of communication but also in the assimilation and interpretation of purposeful human activity system signs. The authors propose that purposeful human activity systems exhibit four types of signs: those indicating the system's persisting meaning, behaviour, structure and process. These signs together indicate the current state of the purposeful human activity system they emerge from and form the foundations of the communication system. Currently, the connection of signs back to a communication system has been largely unexplored, and a taxonomy for identifying and delineating signs in this research context does not exist. The authors present the theoretical virtue of purposeful human activity system signs and a taxonomy developed for identifying and delineating system signs with application for novice system analysts.

AbstractRecent discussion and research in systems engineering have highlighted the need for a principled approach to attaining elegance in engineered systems, in order to enhance product value and reduce life cycle risks. In this paper, we analyse the "elegance factors" pertaining to designed systems from the perspective of the philosophy of value (axiology) and characterize the elegance factors as "systemic virtues," analogous to philosophical models of the factors pertaining to the "goodness" of persons and scientific theories. We defend the possibility of the existence and discovery of general systems laws that could ground a general theory of design elegance, and report on our strategy and progress in developing methods for discovering such laws and for developing such a theory.

Defining system principles provides an approach to assess systems, design systems and develop strategies for effectively implementing system interventions. While principles can be almost anything to anyone, there remains a need to develop more scientific principles that are precise, clear and measurable. This paper presents an ontological framework that first characterizes communication as a conceptual system, emerging from the interaction of information conveyance and convergence. Subsequently, a set of system principles are presented to provide an approach for assessing the communication system interaction within human activity systems. It is posited that the research on the communication system and the subsystems of conveyance and convergence may provide managers and researchers insight into the various factors affecting the behavior of communication throughout the organization during new process implementation efforts. The knowledge of such may prepare managers to consider various factors impacting the effectiveness of information conveyance and convergence on change management. Furthermore, it is anticipated that the development of system principles for the communication system within the bounds of human activity systems will provide a change of perspectives in communication research and engineering management practices for a more optimal design of both systems and their interactions. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

AbstractStruck‐by injuries are associated with negative health outcomes and increased costs caused by violent contact with an object, equipment or person; however, safety behaviours such as hazard identification and communication can reduce or eliminate accident occurrences. The current study applied a systemic perspective to analyse safety behaviour emergence within an organization's safety system. An organization's safety system is a purposeful human activity system (PHAS) because people come together to fulfil the purpose of reducing or eliminating accidents. In this study, a commercial kitchen is defined as a PHAS to guide the analysis and promotion of verbal safety communication behaviour. A game‐based simulation intervention was developed and evaluated to support the emergence of verbal safety communication behaviour within a commercial kitchen. Results showed that the game‐based simulation facilitated the emergence of verbal safety communication behaviour, thus validating the systemic approach used in this study.