Engineering Design Principles for Unsurveyable Systems

The real challenge of systems engineering design is to provide operational solutions for systems that are so large and so complicated that no-one can survey every detail of the system and its behavior. This is a general problem in every engineering discipline. Engineers have learned to cope with the situation. They apply some common principles in their approach to design. These principles may be formulated differently in various branches of engineering. The first section of the chapter will explain the generally agreed approach to the engineering design process.