A Taxonomy of Complexity in Engineering Projects

The use of the words service and product introduced here needs to be clearly understood these words, just as the word system , have different meanings when used in different contexts. Throughout the remainder of the book, the purpose of a project is to fulfil a need, the service provided by a project is that which fulfils the need, and the product of a project is the engineered object that provides the service. In some cases, the service may be a service in the narrower sense, such as public transport, a financial service, health, or education in other cases the concept must be broadened to include providing a product, such as providing a raw material. In this latter case, the product of the project is the object or facility that provides the raw material, such as a mine. 

With this understanding, let us proceed by developing a taxonomy of the complexity encountered in engineering projects by considering where in the project the complexity arises. To this end it is useful to view a project as having four components, 

The division into internal and external components is also useful in viewing the complexities in the engineering process as being of two kinds those determined or induced by the external sources, and those that arise from the engineering process itself The latter will be discussed in Sec. Cl.3, and the view of two kinds of complexities will be very important in developing our approach to handling complexity within the engineering process in Ch. C2. 

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