Systems Thinking Research: Adapting for Engineering Change Management

Systems thinking has been an effective approach to managing organisations going through changes as synthesis allowed the observation of how different entities interacted and influenced how an overall system operated. The rapid changes in technology due to the fourth Industrial Revolution demanded regular and corresponding changes in skills to cope with and manage the changes. This book is based on the systems thinking methodology to manage such changes, which have increasingly become complex and intertwined. Engineering change management is the holistic and systematic approach taken for documenting the changes and modelling the bridge between academia and industry, from identifying the required changes, modelling the elements and their relationships, to planning and implementation by connecting the sub-models, testing, verification and validation. This chapter outlines the principles of systems thinking and forms the foundation for the development of systems thinking sub-models that were later integrated to form the universal model to bridge the gap between industry and academia.