The Systems Approach: A French Experience

The Systems Approach has become an increasingly familiar way of attacking various problems in engineering, management and, possibly, other areas. As a new viewpoint it can be detected today in three ways: in its applications, in the disciplines associated with its development and, in the various sources, some outside engineering and management, which can be ascribed to it.

In what follows we describe a French experience to express and teach systems engineering at ENSAe France, since 1970. It is shown how from the experience of aerospace systems projects and from a reflection upon the school's own curricula in related fields of control, computer and electrical engineering, the decision was made to develop a new, separate program, based upon a pragmatic concept of systems, as evidenced in the French aerospace and defense industries. This five-year experience is then commented upon and summary of opinions of students, course alumni and industry systems engineers on the concept of the systems approach and teaching is presented.