Engineering Systems Multiple-Domain Matrix: An organizing framework for modeling large-scale complex systems

The scope and complexity of engineered systems are ever‐increasing as burgeoning global markets, unprecedented technological capabilities, rising consumer expectations, and ever‐changing social requirements present difficult design challenges that often extend beyond the traditional engineering paradigm. These challenges require engineers and technical managers to treat the technological systems as a part of a larger whole. Existing system modeling frameworks are limited in scope for representing the information about engineering systems. This paper presents a conceptual framework and an improved modeling framework for engineering systems. Its value is that it allows engineers and managers an improved means to visually arrange information and structure discourse in a way that facilitates better systems engineering. It augments the existing literature by providing a clear and concise framework for an engineering system, and provides a methodology for engineers to tag and organize systems information in ways that allow for better collection, storage, processing, and analysis of systems engineering data. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.