Editorial to the Special Issue "Systems Engineering and Knowledge Management"

Abstract

The International Council on Systems Engineering, the leading authority in the realm of Systems Engineering (SE), defines this field of study as a transdisciplinary and integrative approach enabling the realization of the whole life cycle of any engineered system. However, the shift to the transdisciplinary view was based on intradisciplinary and multidisciplinary perspectives on SE. The intradisciplinary point of view is more or less traditional. It is closely associated with the design, development and implementation of information systems. These systems require the cooperation of two stakeholders: a business one (demand) and a technical one (supply). However, this setting can be applied to any domain in which someone needs a technical system and someone is capable of delivering it. Later, a multidisciplinary perspective was shaped. This perspective highlights the necessity of the cooperation of experts from various specialities to develop and deliver required complex systems. The necessity of the coordination, synchronization and orchestration of processes and resources is crucial. Finally, a transdisciplinary point of view stresses that engineering activities, regardless of the domain or the type of system developed, can be generalized and successfully applied during the development of any type of system. Similarly, Knowledge Management (KM) can be understood from two perspectives. The first one is based on the technical perspective, in which KM is characterized by research in fields such as expert or knowledge-based systems. This perspective is mainly associated with the intradisciplinary approach to SE as a specific type of computer-based system is designed, developed and implemented. It operates with specific procedural or declarative knowledge in the form of rules, classes with their attributes, ontologies or different types of networks. It is an established technological discipline that embodies the lowest and the most basic level in which proper attention to knowledge is exercised. The second one is tied to soft systems, in which KM is considered an approach to organizations' improved performance. KM encompasses a knowledge-based and knowledge-orientated organizational management irrespective of organizational mandate or nature. Therefore, KM can be introduced in business organizations, educational institutions or even civil administration. In doing so, prominence to knowledge resources and knowledge processes is highlighted.