What is the body of knowledge for engineers involved with civil engineering systems? – A 2020 vision

This journal has aimed, during its existence of over 35 years, to promote systems methods, approaches and thinking, as applied to Civil Engineering. What then is Civil Engineering Systems? This is precisely the question the editors posed to selected authors, some of them long term contributors and/or editorial board members, and others relatively new to the journal; but all working in their different ways to promote the above aim of the journal. We hope that this exercise will also build and strengthen a community of systems actors – not only among our contributors, but also among our readers. What we have not attempted to do is to arrive at a set of common definitions for systems entities, for example as attempted by INCOSE (e.g. Sillitto et al. 2018); although there may be some merit in such formalisation. Instead, we have sought to foster a conversation, believing that understanding and innovation are sustained in discourse.

The Themes and Threads of the eight papers in this Special Issue are shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Themes and threads.

Author	Systems in general	Process	Time/future	Infrastructure	Sustainability	Uncertainty	Social factors	Data and AI	Education
Carmichael	X							X
Elms	X		X	X		X	X
Lund	X		X	X	X	X	X		X
Blockley	X	X	X			X		X
Whyte et al.		X	X	X	X	X		X
Masterton & Jeffrey			X	X	X				X
Delatte			X						X
Jowitt		X	X		X				X

The most formal contribution in this collection is that of David Carmichael. We lead off with that, not only because it represents one end of two spectra, referring as it does both to a ‘framework’ and also a ‘body of knowledge’, which is indeed reflected in the theme of the special issue. This contribution is followed up by that of David Elms, who is at the other end of the formalism spectrum, his engagement with systems being described as a ‘stance’. Another phrase that captures Elms’ view on systems can be found in his appreciation of David Blockley in the festschrift volume for the latter published by this journal, namely that ‘the systems approach is not easily systematised’ (Elms 2010). Carmichael’s contribution also focuses largely on ‘knowledge’; whereas the last paper by the journal Editor-in-Chief Paul Jowitt insists that systems have to include skills and attitudes as well, using the acronym ‘ASK’. So, we can consider these two contributions as being at the two extremes of the ASK spectrum.

The first four papers in this collection deal directly with systems in general, with the application areas being secondary. David Blockley’s contribution is perhaps closer to Carmichael’s on the formalism spectrum, with his ‘interacting objects process model’ described at various hierarchical levels ranging from beam behaviour to organisational workflow (with constructing a building and making sandwiches in between). Blockley’s application area is information technology and artificial intelligence, which he appropriately qualifies by his insistence on ‘wisdom’ – captured in his title itself. Jay Lund is closer to Jowitt on the ASK spectrum, referring to ‘skills’ in his title and ‘attitudes’ in his text. He is also closer to Elms on the formalism spectrum. Lund’s application area is water and environmental problems, which offer great scope for systems approaches.

Jennifer Whyte et al. also deal with many systems themes such as complexity, integration and life-cycles, but with a specific focus on infrastructure, in the context of a research agenda for approaching it. As depicted in Table 1, other authors who tackle infrastructure are Lund and Elms, and also Gordon Masterton & Paul Jeffrey. The latter paper takes a specific look at cities for the future. Infrastructure is clearly a very rich application regime for systems approaches, involving as it does a range of socio-technical considerations. Another area with similar potential, within the broad field of civil engineering, is environmental systems, now broadened and referred to as ‘sustainability’. This is covered by Whyte et al., and also by Lund, Jowitt and Masterton & Jeffery.

The importance of process for systems thinking has been highlighted in this journal before (e.g. Blockley 2010). Process can be seen as complementary to both product on the one hand (e.g. Dias and Blockley 1994) and structure on the other (e.g. Carmichael in this issue). In this issue, process is mostly addressed by Blockley, through his interacting objects processes; and by Whyte et al., through their view of projects as interventions (both in the model and physical domains), thus generating the process dimension. Jowitt also portrays the rather longer-term introduction of sustainability into engineering curricula as a process.

Although processes occur in time, we distinguish between time as encapsulated in a process view of systems (see above) and time as an entity to be accounted for in systems solutions; the latter includes envisaging the future as well. There are many exponents of this latter dimension of time. Elms covers a range of issues such as differing lifecycles for different project aspects, flexibility with respect to the future in design decisions, discount rates for present value estimates, and dynamic behaviour. Some of the above aspects such as project lifecycles and future focused flexibility in design are also covered by Whyte et al. Blockley too underlines the importance of envisaging future scenarios. Perhaps the most poignant treatment of time is given by Lund, who quotes Russell Ackoff: ‘Over time, every way of thinking generates important problems that it cannot solve’; while himself making the rather memorable statement that: ‘Most infrastructure and environmental system problems are large, complex, and eternal’ [italics ours]. Both Norbert Delatte and Jowitt (and Masterton & Jeffery too) write about the evolution with time of engineering curricula on either side of ‘the pond’, inclusive of future requirements as well.

Recognising and dealing with complexity and uncertainty are two of the most important features of systems approaches. Any significant system is complex by definition, and all authors present complexity in some form, whether implicit or explicit. Uncertainty is specifically treated in four of the papers. Blockley gives an explicit, easy to use ‘Italian flag’ representation of uncertainty, while Whyte et al. refer to it both in envisaging the unknown future and considering the effects of complex infrastructure interventions. Although Lund mentions uncertainty only sparingly, his entire contribution is permeated with this theme – note again his reference to ‘eternal problems’. Perhaps the most novel stance towards uncertainty is taken by Elms, who sees it as a property of the practitioner rather than of the situation. His use of the first person singular in his contribution also emphasises practitioner dependence. Both Lund (explicitly) and Elms (implicitly, through advocacy of an occasional ‘coin toss’ for decision making!) allude to ‘luck’; and also ‘joy’. It is interesting to note such terms, laden with transcendent overtones, in our post-enlightenment culture – perhaps that is one direction for systems thinking in the future!

We come now to the last three columns in Table 1. Social and community factors should be part of all engineering systems, which can also be seen as hard systems embedded in soft ones (Blockley 2013). Only Lund and Elms, however, refer to such factors extensively, with the former making a brief but important allusion to justice too. The engagement with big data, the internet of things (IOT) and artificial intelligence is already upon us and will be a dominant feature in the future. Such areas are dealt with by Blockley and Whyte et al. Carmichael contrasts models based on causality with those based on data.

The last three papers by Masterton & Jeffrey, Delatte, and Jowitt describe changes in engineering curricula from a systems viewpoint, looking once again to the future, but also drawing on the past. For example, both Jowitt (explicitly) and Lund (implicitly) refer to the Harvard Water Programme (Maass et al. 1962), with Jowitt asking why such systems thinking emerged from a School of Public Administration, rather than from a civil engineering department; and why it took engineers and economists so long to catch up! Note that Lund alludes to ‘on the job’ education, something that ties up with the idea that learning is part and parcel of systems approaches (Senge 2006). Special mention should be made of the suggestion of Masterton & Jeffery to include the liberal arts and humanities in engineering curricula.

So, are there any areas that have been missed by out by our illustrious set of contributors? Procurement could perhaps have been given some emphasis. In bygone days, the state was ‘client, consultant and contractor’ in most major infrastructure projects. The modern fragmentation of these roles, and the fact that procurement needs to be done in this context, is surely a complex systems issue. Matters are compounded when shorter lifecycle parts of an infrastructure project could be obsolete by the time the longer ones are completed. Maintenance of engineering artefacts and infrastructure will also become increasingly important, as carbon reduction initiatives may push us to build less. In addition, greater attention may need to be directed towards social factors, especially given that ‘holding paramount the health, safety and welfare of the public’ is an ethic that is subscribed to by engineering associations worldwide.

We end with some remarks on engineering education, since many contributors have referred to it. The International Engineering Alliance (IEA 2020) is in the process of broadening the list of attributes required from accredited engineering programmes to include aspects such as data analytics, social science, sustainability, technology ethics, cultural diversity & inclusivity, and global responsibility. All of these have systems aspects, especially in their interactions. Some of them have been dealt with in this issue; but all need to be areas of continuing conversation and engagement. Finally, it may be pertinent to recall that the last time this journal carried a general overview of systems was in its reporting of the 'Systems 2030' symposium held in 2008 at Bristol University to celebrate David Blockley on his retirement. Reading the editorial written then (Godfrey, Agarwal, and Dias 2010), together with this one, may reveal the manner in which we have moved over the last 10 years or so.