Abstract
M.Ing.
Broadly speaking, the world in which we live exhibits complex interactions of multivariate
and
multidimensional parameters that are implemented by organizations in a global organizational space.
Within this space exists numerous organizations in various disciplines and with various objectives, save
the common objective of survival. These organizations compete in the environment created by this
space, consuming energy, labour and raw materials from the environment and producing energy,
finished products and waste back into the environment. The optimization of the operation, structure and
existence of each organization in organizational space allows for a structured approach to symbiotic
survival and the common achievement of a multitude of organizational objectives; providing for the
avoidance of the depletion or extinction of resources, materials and energies within the space.
If the world as we know it holds organizational space as one of its facets, then the global system is at the
mercy of the operations of each organization, amongst others. The world then contains the embodiment
of each system in some or other dimension. It allows for the training of the mind of the set of human
systems to seek out that which allows for the progression of the common interest of the global system
and thus the survival of each system it contains, ultimately leading to its own survival.
Engineering management allows for the formalization of a relationship between two disciplines that can
greatly impact the operation of the global system. It is not true that this is the most important of all
disciplines; but what can be said to be true is that successful completion of the objectives of each
discipline allows for the achievement of the overall system objectives. Together with all other
disciplines, engineering management calls for both the consideration of organizational space as a whole
and the consideration of each organization within the space.
The consideration of all organizations as an open, selfcontained
system allows for the satisfaction of
the latter consideration by finding the solution to the question: “If I was a system, how would I want to
be controlled and optimized?” An organizational system contains a set of components, inputs, energies,
processes and outputs in one or other formation. Probably one of the most important elements of the
component set is the set of human beings – a component which exhibits nonlinear
and time variant
response characteristics. The successful modeling and optimization of a system as a whole requires the
modeling of each component and process, and that which poses the greatest difficulty is the human,
perhaps because the one responsible for the modeling is itself a component of the same set.
Viewed in light of the greater system, the author is simply a member of the component set of an
academic organization interacting within the global organizational space, and this is the accumulation of
the research that I respectfully present.