Perspectives on Managing Emergent Risk Due to Rising Complexity in Aerospace Systems

Abstract

Managing complexity in the aerospace industry is essential for effective development of modern engineered systems. Preventing emergent risk while maintaining cost and schedule discipline is the main objective for addressing uncontrolled self‐organization due to complexity. Engineers can quantify emergent risk by viewing systems from multiple stakeholder and design perspectives to assess unforeseen behaviors more accurately. In aerospace engineers consider and transpose methods for dealing with complexity that come from the systems, organizational, and complexity science perspectives. This survey highlights commonalities between complexity management methods, systems design models, and elements of systems thinking that can help engineers predict and prepare for emergent behavior in the system. Using new points‐of‐view in design gives practicing engineers more information with which to view and manipulate system properties. The solution for managing complexity lies in multidisciplinary collaboration to solve problems that span multiple academic domains.