Holistic engineering definition

As written in the Definitions, the term socio-technical system pertains to the interrelatedness of the social and technical aspects of an organization. The term is commonly used in sociology, psychology, and human factors engineering. Quite probably, safety professionals will see a more frequent use of the term in their literature. It implies taking a holistic approach to operational risk management—emphasizing the importance of the whole and the interdependence of its parts. 

Key business and engineering management tools. My personal favourites are tools that provide a holistic picture or analytical framework for the whole business or project, thus enabling consideration of all material aspects at an appropriate level of definition to assist with prioritisation and options analysis. 

These two cases demonstrate that when the phrase the x system is used in this manner, its meaning is one of inclusion of what is related to x. But the understanding of what is included may be highly context dependent, and if we want to convey a particular content, using such general statements is inadequate. The idea, sometimes floated in INCOSE discussion groups, that the absence of a defined boundary makes the system concept more holistic , is clearly erroneous. As the definitions in Sec. A1.3 show, the existence of a boundary is intrinsic to the system concept the fact that aU systems of interest to engineering are open, with interactions across this boundary, is a different matter. 

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