Introduction
Systems Engineering and Management for Sustainable Development is a component of Encyclopedia of Technology, Information, and Systems Management Resources in the global Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS), which is an integrated compendium of twenty one Encyclopedias.
This theme discusses: basic principles of systems engineering and management for sustainable development, including: cost effectiveness assessment; decision assessment, tradeoffs, conflict resolution and negotiation; research and development policy; industrial ecology; and risk management strategies for sustainability. The emphasis throughout will be upon the development of appropriate life-cycles for processes that assist in the attainment of sustainable development, and in the use of appropriate policies and systems management approaches to ensure successful application of these processes. The general objectives of these chapters is to illustrate the way in which one specific issue, such as the need to bring about sustainable development, necessarily grows in scope such that it becomes only feasible to consider the engineering and architecting of appropriate systems when the specific issue is imbedded into a wealth of other issues. The discussions provide an illustration of the many attributes and needs associated with the important task of utilizing information and knowledge, enabled through systems engineering and management, to engineer systems involving humans, organizations, and technology, in the support of sustainability.
These two volumes are aimed at the following five major target audiences: University and College students Educators, Professional practitioners, Research personnel and Policy analysts, managers, and decision makers and NGOs
Editor(s) Biography
Andrew P. Sage received the BSEE degree from the Citadel, the SMEE degree from MIT, and the Ph.D. from Purdue, the latter in 1960. He received honorary Doctor of Engineering degrees from the University of Waterloo in 1987 and from Dalhousie University in 1997. He has been a faculty member at several universities and, in 1984 he became First American Bank Professor of Information Technology and Engineering at George Mason University and the first Dean of the School of Information Technology and Engineering. In 1996, he was elected as Founding Dean Emeritus of the School and also was appointed as a University Professor. He is an elected Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the International Council on Systems Engineering. He is editor of the John Wiley textbook series on Systems Engineering and Management, the INCOSE Wiley journal Systems Engineering and is co-editor of Information, Knowledge, and Systems Management. In 1994 he received the Donald G. Fink Prize from the IEEE, and a Superior Public Service Award for his service on the CNA Corporation Board of Trustees from the US Secretary of the Navy. In 2000, he received the Simon Ramo Medal from the IEEE in recognition of his contributions to systems engineering and an IEEE Third Millennium Medal. He has been elected to the US National Academy of Engineering in 2004. His interests include systems engineering and management efforts in a variety of application areas including systems integration and architecting, re-engineering, and industrial ecology and sustainable development.
