The fellow who is able to get the grants and contracts is the fellow who gets the doctoral students. Each student publishes two or three papers on his thesis, in each of which he cites his professor's work. Then he goes on and does his own subsequent work, in which, of course, he cites those thesis papers which were coauthorised by his professor.
The lack of formal definition does not prevent us from noting the characteristics which are frequently present in large scale systems. Each such system has a certain integrity. It may or may not be rigidly controlled from some central point, but in every case, all the parts of the system have some common purpose; in some sense, they all contribute to the production of a single set of optimum outputs from the given set of inputs, with respect to some appropriate measure of effectiveness.
[Systems should be classified] on the basis of the types of inputs with which they must cope.
[This set of inputs [can be defined] as 1) input which is always the same or is of many types, 2) input which occurs periodically (or very infrequently), and 3) input which does or does not seek to destroy the system. Their rationale for developing the classification was to aid in the definition of steps to be followed in order to find the] solution of the problem of a large-scale or complex system.
Every large-scale system is an . The automatic factory, the vehicular-traffic system, any military system- in the design of all these systems, primary attention should be given to the flow of information about the elements of the system.
We have discovered in this past decade that thinking, and decision, are not solely the province of the metaphysicist, but are appropriate subjects for scientific inquiry.
Sometimes it is more difficult to formulate the criterion for a problem than to state the question itself.
Everyone knows what engineering is. All that's left is to define systems, and I'm not fool enough to do that.
The purpose and real value of systems engineering is... to keep going around the loop; find inadequacies and make improvements.
Mathematicians are there to find the constraints and to eliminate those things that aren't constraints... I know this will surprise many of you, but they are useful!
Scientists possess healthy skepticism. They realize that you've got to know the answer before you measure it.
The ideal system engineer is an engineer thoroughly versed in his field but conversant with and knowledgeable of other fields. You have to have the capability and desire to become a 'six-month expert'... You've got to want to become a generalist, too.
The conclusions of most good operations research studies are obvious.
If the assumptions are wrong, the conclusions aren't likely to be very good.
There comes a time when one must stop suggesting and evaluating new solutions, and get on with the job of analyzing and implementing one pretty good solution.
Sometimes, where a complex problem can be illuminated by many tools, one can be forgiven for applying the one he knows best.
Most accidents in well-designed systems involve two or more events of low probability occurring in the worst possible combination.