Toolkit: Complex Systems Toolkit.

Authors: Dr. Natalie Wint (University College London); Dr. Mohammad Hassannezhad (University College London); Dr. Manoj Ravi (University of Leeds).

Topic: Complex systems competencies.

Title: Understanding complex systems competencies required in engineering graduates. 

Resource type: Knowledge article.

Relevant disciplines: Any.

Keywords: Systems thinking; Problem-solving; Critical thinking; Digital literacy; Modelling and simulation; Design; Project management; Life cycle; Risk; Collaboration; Communication; Professional conduct; Social responsibility.

Licensing: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. 

Downloads: A PDF of this resource will be available soon.

Learning and teaching resources:

Who is this article for?: This article should be read by educators at all levels in higher education who are seeking an overall perspective on teaching approaches for integrating complex systems in engineering education. 

Related INCOSE Competencies: Toolkit resources are designed to be applicable to any engineering discipline, but educators might find it useful to understand their alignment to competencies outlined by the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE). The INCOSE Competency Framework provides a set of 37 competencies for Systems Engineering within a tailorable framework that provides guidance for practitioners and stakeholders to identify knowledge, skills, abilities and behaviours crucial to Systems Engineering effectiveness. A free spreadsheet version of the framework can be downloaded. 

AHEP mapping: This resource addresses several of the themes from the UK’s Accreditation of Higher Education Programmes fourth edition (AHEP4). 

 

Premise:

This article outlines the core competencies required for engineering students to effectively engage with complex systems. Such systems involve a range of technical and non-technical components that interact in non-linear and unpredictable ways. Working effectively with such complex systems requires collaboration across engineering disciplines, as well as other fields and stakeholder groups.  

Within AHEP4, complex problems are referred to as those which “have no obvious solution and may involve wide-ranging or conflicting technical issues and/or user needs that can be addressed through creativity and the resourceful application of engineering science” (p.26). The ability to work productively with complex systems is therefore essential for engineers and helps them address problems increasingly experienced in business and society, which have many interdependent components and lack clear or stable solutions.  

The aim of this article is to provide a foundational framework that integrates the knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary for undergraduate and graduate engineering students to navigate complexity. In so doing, it serves educators, curriculum designers, and students seeking to develop the mindset and skills required to tackle the challenges of the 21st century within an increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world (SEFI, 2025).  

This knowledge article, informed by the INCOSE Competency Framework for Systems Engineering (INCOSE, 2018), categorises complex systems competencies into eight core competencies. These competencies encompass mindset and foundations, technical methods and tools, management and delivery, and attributes and behaviours. The description of each competency references learning outcomes (LOs) outlined in AHEP4 (Engineering Council, 2025) and the International Engineering Alliance (IEA) Graduate Attributes (2021) to establish a common baseline for all engineering graduates (see Appendix for mapping).  

 

The eight core complex systems competencies:

1. Systems thinking and problem framing 

The ability to take a holistic approach, to consider a problem from multiple perspectives and to understand how a system’s parts interact to produce emergent behaviour.  

Students must be able to understand what makes a system ‘complex’ and move beyond narrow problem-solving to identify root causes. This involves understanding fundamental Systems thinking concepts including hierarchies and interfaces (structural dimension), holism and cause-effect (dynamic dimension), lifecycles (time dimension), and multiple perspectives (perception dimension).  

Systems thinking enables engineers to anticipate ripple effects, emergent behaviours, and trade-offs, designing solutions that remain robust under uncertainty. AHEP4 requires students to “formulate and analyse complex problems to reach substantiated conclusions” (LO2) and to “apply an integrated or systems approach to the solution of complex problems” (LO6).  

2. Critical thinking 

The ability to question assumptions, evaluate evidence, apply logical reasoning, and justify decisions based on reasoned arguments and evidence.  

Navigating complex systems involves working with a variety of (often conflicting) goals, information, and data types from across discipline and stakeholder groups. Critical thinking is thus necessary to enable engineers to identify biases, avoid oversimplification and flawed reasoning, and to make ethical, transparent and evidence-informed decisions with consideration for unintended consequences. AHEP4 requires graduates to “critically evaluate technical literature and other sources of information to solve complex problems” (LO4). 

3. Simulation, modelling and data literacy 

The ability to apply scientific, mathematical, and engineering principles to model, test, and improve complex systems.  

Working with complex systems involves a range of resources including people, data and information, tools and appropriate technologies. Students must be able to create, apply and validate system models (as physical, mathematical, or logical representation of systems) and demonstrate competence in simulation and data literacy to address uncertainty and complexity at scale. This may involve using models and data to justify assumptions, explore scenarios, predict the consequences of actions, solve difference equations, conduct sensitivity and stability analysis, and predict the probability of risk.  

This aligns with several AHEP4 outcomes: “apply mathematics, statistics, and engineering principles to solve complex problems” (LO1); “apply computational and analytical techniques while recognising limitations” (LO3); and “select and critically evaluate technical literature and other data sources” (LO4).  

4. Design for complexity and changeability 

The ability to design adaptable, robust, and resilient systems across their lifecycle.  

Changes (both planned and unplanned) are inherent in complex systems. Long-term success of a system therefore requires design for resilience to first hand/internal (by the system), second hand/external (to the system) or third hand (around the system) change. Design for complexity and changeability ensures systems can evolve and integrate new capabilities across their lifecycle.  

AHEP4 requires engineers to be able to innovatively “design solutions that meet a combination of societal, user, business and customer needs” (LO5). This may involve designing systems that deliver required functions over time, including evolution, adaptability, and integration across subsystems (capability engineering), and supports evaluation of alternatives, balance competing objectives, and justify transparent decisions (decision management).  

5. Project and lifecycle management 

The ability to plan and deliver engineering activities across the system lifecycle, ensuring outcomes are delivered on time, on cost, and with integrity.  

Complex systems involve many subsystems with various purposes and lifecycles. This necessitates effective coordination and delivery processes and a focus on early planning and lasting systemic impacts. Project and lifecycle management allows for concurrent engineering (parallelisation of tasks), and verification and validation of tasks in dynamic environments. Graduates must “apply knowledge of engineering management principles, commercial context, project and change management” (AHEP4, LO15).  

This aligns with the Engineering Attribute of Project Management and Teamwork and the INCOSE Framework competencies in Lifecycle Processes, Integration, and Project Management, emphasising coordinated delivery and long-term value creation across socio-technical systems. Lifecycle awareness prevents short-term optimisation and emphasises aspects such as maintainability, whole-life value delivery and total expenditure (TOTEX) thinking, all of which support efforts towards sustainability and net-zero.  

6. Risk and uncertainty management 

The ability to identify, assess, and manage technical, social, environmental, and ethical risks at multiple levels of complex systems.  

Complex systems are inherently uncertain, with cascading risks that must be anticipated and managed proactively. Risk management enables students to quantify source and impact of uncertainties where possible and apply precaution where uncertainty is irreducible, ensuring safety, sustainability, and governance.  

AHEP4 requires graduates to “use a structured risk management process to identify, evaluate and mitigate risks (the effects of uncertainty)” (LO9), ranging from project-specific challenges to systemic threats, which need to “adopt a holistic and proportionate approach to the mitigation of security risks” (LO10).  

7. Collaboration and communication 

The ability to work effectively across disciplines, boundaries, and cultures, while conveying complex insights clearly to technical and non-technical audiences. 

Complex systems challenges cannot be solved by individuals alone and include consideration for stakeholders across industry, policy and society. Such collaborative processes involve participatory problem-solving, learning from others, inclusive communication, and negotiation and persuasion strategies, all of which necessitate emotional intelligence.  

AHEP4 expects graduates to “function effectively as an individual, and as a member or leader of a team, being able to evaluate own and team performance” (LO16). They must be able to influence stakeholder decisions, foster alignment, and shape outcomes across industry, policy, and society (AHEP4, LO17).  

8. Professional responsibility 

The ability to apply professional and societal responsibilities in decision-making, with awareness of ethical implications and long-term impacts and unintended consequences of engineered systems.  

Engineers increasingly work on complex systems that shape lives, societies, and ecosystems. Ethical responsibility ensures that technical competence aligns with social good and involves consideration for trade-offs between factors including environmental impact, affordability and social acceptance. This aligns with AHEP4, IEA, and INCOSE principles on ethics, professionalism, and leadership, ensuring engineers act responsibly within complex systems and contribute positively to society and sustainability. AHEP4 requires graduates to “identify and analyse ethical concerns and make reasoned ethical choices informed by professional codes of conduct” (LO8) and “evaluate the environmental and societal impact of solutions to complex problems” (LO7).  

 

Conclusions:

This article defines a set of eight integrated competencies that prepare engineering graduates to navigate complex systems. Together, they combine knowledge (what graduates must know), skills (what they can do), and attitudes (how they behave and think). Embedding these competencies requires project-based learning, interdisciplinary collaboration, and reflective exercises, while assessment should include portfolios, teamwork, and scenario analysis. Employers and professional bodies can reinforce these competencies through mentoring, internships, and early career development. 

By aligning with INCOSE, AHEP4, and IEA GA frameworks (see Appendix for mapping), this guidance provides an internationally consistent foundation that can be adapted to local contexts, equipping engineering graduates to address complex, interdependent challenges of the 21st century with competence, integrity, and resilience.  

 

Appendix:  

Mapping between Eight Core Competencies and Standard frameworks 

Proposed Core Competency   INCOSE * AHEP4 ** IEA GA *** 
Systems Thinking & Problem Framing ST LO2, LO6 WA2
Critical Thinking   CT LO4 WA4, WA11 
Simulation, Modelling & Data Literacy  IM, SM  LO1, LO3, LO4  WA1, WA4, WA5
Design for Complexity & Changeability  CP, DM, DF LO5  WA3 
Project & Lifecycle Management   LC, PL, CE, CP  LO15  WA10 
Risk & Uncertainty Management  CE, PL, RO  LO9, LO10 –
Collaboration & Communication   CC, TD, TL, EI  LO16, LO17  WA8, WA9 
Professional Responsibility  EI, EP  LO7, LO8  WA6, WA7 

 

* INCOSE Competency Framework, 2nd edition (2018) 

** AHEP4 Learning Outcome (LO) (2025) 

*** International Engineering Alliance (IEA) Graduate Attributes (GA) (2021) 

 

CC = Communications 

CE = Concurrent Engineering  

CP = Capability Engineering 

CT = Critical Thinking 

DF = Design For … 

DM = Decision Management 

EI = Emotional Intelligence 

EP = Ethics and Professionalism 

IM = Information Management 

 LC = Life Cycle 

LO = Learning Outcome 

PL = Planning 

RO = Risk and Opportunity Management 

TD = Team Dynamics 

TL = Technical Leadership 

SM = Systems Modelling and Analysis 

ST = Systems Thinking 

WA = Washington Accord 

 

References:

 

Any views, thoughts, and opinions expressed herein are solely that of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, policies, or position of the Engineering Professors’ Council or the Toolkit sponsors and supporters.  

Toolkit: Complex Systems Toolkit.

Author: Milan Liu, Ph.D. Candidate (Cranfield University); Dr. Lampros Litos (Cranfield University). 

Topic: Towards circular economy: development of systems-based interventions in complex systems.

Title: Improving metal recycling and recycled content intake.

Resource type: Guidance article.

Relevant disciplines: Any; Production and manufacturing engineering.

Keywords: Recycled materials; Circular economy; Socio-technical systems; Waste management; Life cycle; Sustainability.

Licensing: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. 

Downloads: A PDF of this resource will be available soon.

 

Who is this article for?: This article should be read by educators at all levels of higher education looking to highlight the connection between complex systems and sustainability within engineering learning. 

Related INCOSE Competencies: Toolkit resources are designed to be applicable to any engineering discipline, but educators might find it useful to understand their alignment to competencies outlined by the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE). The INCOSE Competency Framework provides a set of 37 competencies for Systems Engineering within a tailorable framework that provides guidance for practitioners and stakeholders to identify knowledge, skills, abilities and behaviours crucial to Systems Engineering effectiveness.  A free spreadsheet version of the framework can be downloaded.

This resource relates to the Systems Thinking, Life Cycles, Capability Engineering, Systems Modelling and Analysis, and Design INCOSE competencies.

AHEP mapping: This resource addresses several of the themes from the UK’s Accreditation of Higher Education Programmes fourth edition (AHEP4): Analytical Tools and Techniques (critical to the ability to model and solve problems), and Integrated / Systems Approach (essential to the solution of broadly-defined problems). In addition, this resource addresses AHEP themes of Materials, equipment, technologies and processes, and Sustainability.  

 

Learning and teaching resources:

Resource  Type  Best for  Quick classroom use  URL 
Insight Maker  Web-based modelling tool  Building stock-and-flow models and simple simulations  Convert the aluminium CLD into stocks/flows and run a scenario  https://insightmaker.com 
Loopy  Interactive causal-loop diagram app  Fast, visual CLDs and in-class demonstration of loop behaviour  Live demo of reinforcing vs balancing loops; students toggle link polarities  https://ncase.me/loopy 
Vensim PLE  Free desktop system-dynamics software  Introductory quantitative modelling and sensitivity runs  Short lab: implement simplified aluminium-recycling model and compare policy scenarios  https://vensim.com/free-download/ 
Leverage Points (Meadows)  Concept primer on leverage points  Framing where to intervene in systems  Assign as required reading; students map which leverage points the CLD targets  https://donellameadows.org/archives/leverages-points-places-to-intervene-in-a-system/ 
MIT  System Dynamics materials  Course notes and lecture videos  Structured curriculum and worked examples for deeper study  Use selected lectures and problem sets for follow-up or flipped classroom  https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/15-871-introduction-to-system-dynamics-fall-2013/  

 

Premise:

Several sustainability challenges, such as transitioning to a circular economy, are embedded in complex socio-technical systems. A circular economy is an economic model that replaces the linear take-make-dispose pattern with systems that keep materials and products in use for longer through designing for durability, reuse, remanufacturing, and recycling, while minimising waste and regenerating natural systems (Rizos, Tuokko, and Behrens, 2017).   

Complex systems like these exhibit feedback loops, delays, non-linear change, path dependence and emergent behaviour ​(Sterman, 2000; Meadows, 2008)​. This article introduces the idea of systems-based interventions using the example of aluminium recycling systems. It is designed for engineering educators who plan to provide learners with a baseline understanding of complexity and practical entry points for designing and developing and evaluating interventions that can move a system towards sustainability. 

 

Complexity of aluminium recycling systems:

Aluminium is infinitely recyclable, yet achieving truly closed material loops at scale remains a challenge. Most of today’s recycling occurs in situations where post-consumer scrap is collected from a wide variety of end-of-life products and the boundaries of the recycling system are difficult to define and control. This creates high variability in both the composition and the quality of recovered aluminium, since different products contain different alloys and levels of contamination ​(IRT M2P, 2023)​. At the same time, the volume of available scrap is difficult to predict, as it depends on product lifespans and consumer behaviour. These fluctuations make it harder for producers to plan and optimise secondary aluminium output, particularly when industries rely on consistent standards or just-in-time manufacturing. 

The recycling system is also shaped by broader economic and regulatory forces. On the one hand, demand for low-carbon materials and the cost advantage of recycled over primary aluminium are powerful drivers of growth. On the other hand, the system faces constraints from volatile scrap prices and shifting global trade dynamics, such as U.S. tariffs on aluminium imports. Meanwhile, new policy instruments are adding further complexity. The EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) is set to reshape trade flows and investment patterns, while the forthcoming Digital Product Passport (DPP) will transform how information is shared across the value chain. Together, these forces influence technologies, markets and business models, underscoring the dynamic and interconnected nature of aluminium recycling. 

These interconnected factors highlight aluminium recycling as a complex socio-technical system, in which technological capabilities, market incentives, policy frameworks, and global trade are deeply interconnected. For educators, this makes aluminium an effective example for teaching students how multiple forces interact to create both opportunities and challenges for sustainable engineering. 

 

Intervention from systems perspective:

System Dynamics (SD), first formalised by ​Forrester (1968)​, has proven to be a highly valuable approach for understanding and managing complex resource and recovery systems. SD is an interdisciplinary approach, drawing on insights from psychology, organisational theory, economics, and related fields ​(Sterman, 2000)​. More supporting information about SD pedagogical tools and techniques can be found through the System Dynamics Society and Insight Maker. 

From a systems perspective, interventions are not isolated events but strategic effort to influence system behaviour by targeting its structure and dynamics. A key concept here is leverage points – places within a complex system where small changes can lead to significant, systemic effects ​(Meadows, 1999)​. ​Meadows​ identified twelve types of leverage points, ranging from adjusting parameters to transforming the system’s underlying goals and paradigms, proving a conceptual framework for identifying impactful intervention. 

Figure 1. Donella Meadows’ leverage points (Source: based on Meadows (1999); credit: UNDP/Carlotta Cataldi; reproduced from ​Bovarnick and Cooper (2021)​) 

 

Exploration of potential leverage points: 

System Dynamics (SD) tools such as Causal Loop Diagrams (CLDs) can help explore leverage points. CLDs can help visualise main components of a system and their interdependencies, making complex dynamics easier to understand. Besides, the process of building a CLD or more computational SD model encourages practitioners to clarify system boundaries, relationships, and drivers, laying the foundation for identifying leverage points. 

For example, a CLD of aluminium recycling might capture how classification and sorting processes influence scrap quality, which then affects remelting efficiency and ultimately market uptake of recycled alloys (see Figure 2 below). 

 

Figure 2. The causal loop diagram for auto aluminium recycling (Liu et al., 2025) 

By tracing these circular cause-and-effect relationships, learners can see where interventions may ripple through the system. Highlighting reinforcing loops, balancing loops, and delays also shows why some interventions produce limited short-term results but more substantial long-term effects. 

Leverage points can also be examined through the lens of information, rules, and goals. Improved information flows, such as those enabled by the Digital Product Passport, could reshape how scrap is sorted and valued. Rules, such as alloy specifications or trade tariffs, determine what types of recycled material can enter the market. At a deeper level, the goals of the system, whether to maximise throughput or to retain material value, fundamentally shape behaviour. Here too, CLDs are valuable because they allow users to visualise how changes to information, rules, or goals can shift system dynamics, providing a clearer picture of where interventions might be most effective. 

 

Implication for educators: 

This article equips educators with a focused, practical pathway to teach systems thinking through the example of aluminium recycling. Students can gain both conceptual understanding and hands-on skills to map feedback loops, identify delays, and design interventions that account for short-term trade-offs and long-term system behaviour. Teaching a single clear CLD followed by one modelling or scenario activity produces measurable learning gains while keeping the task accessible for beginners. 

 

Educational approach: 

 

Potential related learning outcomes within this topic: 

 

Further resources: 

 

References 

 

Any views, thoughts, and opinions expressed herein are solely that of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, policies, or position of the Engineering Professors’ Council or the Toolkit sponsors and supporters. 

Toolkit: Complex Systems Toolkit.

Authors: Dr Neil Carhart, University of Bristol; Dr. Francesco Ciriello, King’s College London; Richard Beasley, RB Systems.

Topic: Definitions of key terms relevant to Engineered Complex Systems.

Title: Engineering complex systems glossary. 

Resource type: Knowledge article.

Relevant disciplines: Any.

Keywords: Definitions; Emergence; Systems.

Licensing: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. 

Downloads: 

Who is this article for?: This article should be read by educators at all levels in higher education who are seeking an overall perspective on teaching approaches for integrating complex systems in engineering education. 

Related INCOSE Competencies: Toolkit resources are designed to be applicable to any engineering discipline, but educators might find it useful to understand their alignment to competencies outlined by the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE). The INCOSE Competency Framework provides a set of 37 competencies for Systems Engineering within a tailorable framework that provides guidance for practitioners and stakeholders to identify knowledge, skills, abilities and behaviours crucial to Systems Engineering effectiveness. A free spreadsheet version of the framework can be downloaded. 

This resource relates to the Systems Thinking and Critical Thinking INCOSE competencies. 

AHEP mapping: This resource addresses several of the themes from the UK’s Accreditation of Higher Education Programmes fourth edition (AHEP4): Analytical Tools and Techniques (critical to the ability to model and solve problems), and Integrated / Systems Approach (essential to the solution of broadly-defined problems).  

 

Premise: 

This document aims to provide definitions of key terms regarding engineered complex systems.  

There are many existing relevant glossaries (for example, the Systems Engineering Body of Knowledge or SEBoK) so we have implemented a process to select a curated list of 14 common terms that are fundamental when considering the idea of complexity in engineered solutions, and therefore of importance to educators in this space. Rather than adding new definitions for each term we offer appropriate and accessible definitions from the literature, together with commentary exploring wider context and consideration where relevant.  

 

Approach: 

Some care is needed when using any definition around terms relating to complexity – because complexity itself is complex. There are multiple valid perspectives and so any one definition is unlikely to capture the totality of nuance and satisfy the variety of viewpoints. The process for selecting these terms involved collating an initial long list for potential inclusion, along with the ways in which each has been previously defined. These are provided as a supplementary annex to the main glossary. The method is further described in the following sub-section.  

An initial list of potential terms to define was generated by cross-referencing existing glossaries. Terms that occurred in multiple glossaries were included in the long list. The definitions of these terms were extracted from these existing glossaries and are cited in the references. In addition, the relationship to the INCOSE Competencies is shown. The range of potential terms, and the variety of definitions that already exist, illustrate the complexity of describing complexity!  

The authors used three categorisations of the definitions to help further group and classify the terms. The following categories are tagged to relevant terms in the glossary: 

1. Property – whether or not the term describes a property applied to systems; 

2. Principle – whether or not the term represents a principle that should be used when engineering complex situations or systems; 

3. Approach – whether or not the term represents an approach, or element of an approach that should / could be used when engineering complex situations or systems. 

Finally, explanatory commentary was added to most definitions to more specifically address an engineering education context.  

 

Glossary:

 

Architecture 

Definition: “an abstract description of the entities of a system and the relationship between those entities.” Crawley et al. (2016) System Architecture: Strategy & Product Development for Complex Systems

 

Boundary 

#Property #Principle 

Definition: “Define the system to be addressed. A description of the boundary of the system can include the following: definition of internal and external elements/items involved in realizing the system purpose as well as the system boundaries in terms of space, time, physical, and operational. Also, identification of what initiates the transitions of the system to operational status and what initiates its disposal is important.” NASA (2007) NASA Systems Engineering Handbook, p304 

Commentary: The boundary defines the scope of the system being considered, and by implication, what sits outside of the system. As such, it is critically important to define the boundary of the system-of-interest. When dealing with complex systems this can be a challenging task and may even benefit from acknowledging multiple boundaries (e.g. physical, spatial, functional, logical etc.). For example, the boundary of the physical elements of a system could be considered within a wider boundary of the problem space.  

 

Complexity 

#Property 

Definition: “A complex system is a system in which there are non-trivial relationships between cause and effect: each effect may be due to multiple causes; each cause may contribute to multiple effects; causes and effects may be related as feedback loops, both positive and negative; and cause-effect chains are cyclic and highly entangled rather than linear and separable.” INCOSE (2019) INCOSE Systems Engineering and Systems Definitions 

Commentary: Early conceptions of complexity emphasised the difficulty in understanding, predicting or verifying the behaviours of a system. A key distinction arising from this is the complicated and complex are not synonymous.  This concept of the difficulty in predicting behaviours is reflected in the definitions of the NASA Systems Engineering Handbook, SEBoK and ISO 24765. This is the key resultant consideration but does not describe the underlying property which causes this difficulty. While this definition relates more to complex systems than complexity, it is chosen for the way in which it goes beyond the consequences of complexity.  

 

Coupling 

#Property #Principle 

Definition: “Coupling […] means to fasten together, or simply to connect things […] Coupling suggests a relationship between connected entities. If they are coupled, in some way they can affect each other […] For the system to be useful, its components have to be connected – coupled – so that they can work together. That said, putting them together arbitrarily won’t do the trick. The components have to be coupled in a way that achieves the goals of the system. Not only is coupling the glue that holds a system together, but it also makes the value of the system higher than the sum of its parts.” Khononov (2024) Balancing Coupling in Software Design: Universal Design Principles for Architecting Modular Software Systems, Ch1 

Commentary: Coupling is a very important concept. It is the interconnection and interdependence that makes the system more (or less) than the sum of its parts. Standard Systems architecture advice is to minimise coupling between system elements (or between the systems in a system-of-systems). This is because high coupling correlates to higher structural complexity, reduced resilience and flexibility in the system, and introduces challenges for modularity in the system design. Lower or looser coupling means changes in one part of the system (in design or operation) are less likely to induce or require changes in another part. However, this lower coupling is not always possible and may be necessary to improve system performance (for example communication through intermediate layers in a system to reduce coupling can introduce unacceptable amounts of overhead and latency in the system). In design terms, high coupling between system elements means that those elements cannot be designed independently.  

 

Emergence 

#Principle 

Definition: “As the entities of a system are brought together, their interaction will cause function, behaviour, performance and other intrinsic (anticipated and unanticipated) properties to emerge… Emergence refers to what appears, materializes, or surfaces when a system operates.” Crawley et al. (2016) System Architecture: Strategy & Product Development for Complex Systems 

Commentary: It is worth noting that Crawley et al. (2014) go on to add “As a consequence of emergence, change propagates in unpredictable ways. System success occurs when anticipated emergence occurs, while system failure occurs when anticipated emergent properties fail to appear or when unanticipated undesirable emergent properties appear.” This emergence that gives rise to the difficulty in understanding, predicting or verifying the behaviours of a system (see Complexity).

 

Form 

#Property 

Definition: “The shape, size, dimensions, mass, weight, and other measurable parameters which uniquely characterize an item.” SAE International (2019) ANSI/EIA-649C 

 

Function 

#Principle #Approach 

Definition: “A function is defined as the transformation of input flows, with defined performance targets for how well the function is performed in different conditions. A function usually has logical pre-conditions that trigger its operation. ”Systems Engineering Body of Knowledge v2.12 (2025)  

Commentary: In general usage it is common to hear reference to ‘Form and Function’ in tandem, but it is the distinction between them and their relationship to one another that is important to engineering complex systems. Thinking in terms of functionality is a good way of abstracting the system to define what it does (or is needed to do) rather than what it is (and therefore by extension its form).  Functions are normally allocated to single sub-elements of the system.  Complexity arises at functional interfaces, or when different elements perform the same function. Thinking in terms of functionality encourages creativity as designers consider all the different ways in which the function could be performed – and then apply requirement constraints to choose the best/most feasible option.  Thinking in terms of “objects” first constrains design by presupposing the solutions.  Equally, when the solution goes wrong, thinking in terms of what function is failing and why, rather than focusing on a failed part allows identification of the true root cause. Organisations also have functions (such as Engineering, Human Resources, etc.) as a group of roles that perform a specific set of activities. This is important for considering the organisation/System that creates the engineered solution (which is itself a complex system, but secondary to the main application of the idea of function). 

 

Iteration 

#Approach 

Definition: “Iteration is used as a generic term for successive application of a systems approach to the same problem situation, learning from each application, in order to progress towards greater stakeholder satisfaction.” Systems Engineering Body of Knowledge v2.12 (2025)  

 

Lifecycle  

#Property #Principle #Approach 

Definition: “The evolution of a system, product, service, project or other human-made entity from conception through retirement.” ISO (2024) ISO/IEC/IEEE 24748-1:2024 

Commentary: Understanding the lifecycle of an engineered artefact is very important. Issues arising in later stages (e.g. production, support/maintenance, upgrade and disposal) must be considered during the system’s initial development. In a system-of-systems or a capability system a significant source of complexity is the fact that different system elements have different lifecycles, and so may change or be changed independently of other elements with which they may interact or interdepend.  

 

Model 

#Approach 

Definition: “An abstraction of a system, aimed at understanding, communicating, explaining, or designing aspects of interest of that system” Dori, D. (2003) Conceptual modelling and system architecting, p286 

Commentary: An abstraction is a simplification. The selection of what to exclude, what to include, and at what level of granularity to depict it, is informed by the purpose of the model and the point of view from which it is created. Models do not have to be quantitative, nor is their purpose exclusively analytical. 

 

Stakeholder 

Definition: “A group or individual who is affected by or has an interest or stake in a program or project.” NASA (2019) NASA Systems Engineering Handbook SP-2016-6105 (Rev. 2) 

Commentary: It is worth noting the potential difference between a stakeholder of the project that develops the system, and a stakeholder of the system that is developed.  

 

System 

#Principle #Approach 

Definition: “A system is an arrangement of parts or elements that together exhibit behaviour or meaning that the individual constituents do not.” INCOSE (2019) INCOSE Fellows Briefing to INCOSE Board of Directors, January 2019 

Commentary: There are many similar definitions of a system, each may offer a slightly different phrasing which can resonate better with different individuals. The origins of this definition is explained in the Systems Engineering Body of Knowledge. In assessing complexity in engineered system, the concept of “systems” is of course of key value.  There are two important aspects two consider: 

1) Many schools of Systems Science argue that systems do not actually exist (apart from perhaps the complete universe) – they are defined for the convenience of consideration, and so the definition of the boundary of the “system of interest” is both important and somewhat arbitrary. As such, the system-of-interest can have multiple useful boundaries.  While it might be possible to identify and articulate the physical boundary of an engineered artefact (and it should be acknowledged), it might not be the most useful boundary to consider.  

2) The point of defining a “system of interest” includes being able to consider it as a system and so use the properties seen in systems (boundary, interface with outside, affected by/affecting environment, made up of parts, part of something larger, has a lifecycle, seen differently by different people (with different perspectives), are dynamic, exhibit emergence etc.) as a “framework for curiosity” (as the INCOSE SE competency framework defines systems thinking).

In engineered systems (rather than natural systems) it is important to distinguish between purpose (what those engineering or creating it want it do) and emergence (what it actually does). 

 

Systems Engineering 

#Principle #Approach 

Definition: “Systems Engineering is a transdisciplinary and integrative approach to enable the successful realization, use, and retirement of engineered systems, using systems principles and concepts, and scientific, technological, and management methods.” INCOSE (2019) INCOSE Systems Engineering and Systems Definitions 

 

Systems Thinking 

#Approach 

Definition: “Systems thinking is thinking about a question, circumstance, or problem explicitly as a system – a set of interrelated entities.” Crawley et al. (2016) System Architecture: Strategy & Product Development for Complex Systems 

Commentary: Crawley et al (2016) go on to add “This means identifying the system, its form and function, by identifying its entities and their interrelationships, its system boundary and context, and the emergent properties of the system based on the function of the entities, and their functional interactions.”  

 

References:

 

 

Any views, thoughts, and opinions expressed herein are solely that of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, policies, or position of the Engineering Professors’ Council or the Toolkit sponsors and supporters.  

Toolkit: Complex Systems Toolkit.

Author: Onyekachi Nwafor (KatexPower).

Topic: Emergence in complex systems.

Title: Understanding emergence in complex engineering systems.

Resource type: Knowledge article.

Relevant disciplines: Any.

Keywords: Emergence; Boundaries; Unpredictability; Instability; System dynamics model; Digital engineering tools.

Licensing: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. 

Downloads: A PDF of this resource will be available soon.

Who is this article for?: This article should be read by educators at all levels in higher education who are seeking to provide students with an overall perspective on complex systems in engineering. 

Related INCOSE Competencies: Toolkit resources are designed to be applicable to any engineering discipline, but educators might find it useful to understand their alignment to competencies outlined by the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE). The INCOSE Competency Framework provides a set of 37 competencies for Systems Engineering within a tailorable framework that provides guidance for practitioners and stakeholders to identify knowledge, skills, abilities and behaviours crucial to Systems Engineering effectiveness. A free spreadsheet version of the framework can be downloaded. 

This resource relates to the Systems Thinking and Critical Thinking INCOSE competencies. 

AHEP mapping: This resource addresses several of the themes from the UK’s Accreditation of Higher Education Programmes fourth edition (AHEP4): Analytical Tools and Techniques (critical to the ability to model and solve problems), and Integrated / Systems Approach (essential to the solution of broadly-defined problems).  

 

Learning and teaching resources:

 

Premise:

Engineering systems today are increasingly complex, interconnected, and adaptive. To understand and manage them effectively, engineers must move beyond reductionist thinking where systems are broken into isolated parts and adopt systems thinking, which views systems as wholes made up of interacting components. 

At the heart of this perspective lies emergence, a defining characteristic of complex systems. Emergence refers to properties or behaviours that arise from interactions among components but cannot be predicted or understood by examining those components in isolation. Appreciating emergence helps engineers anticipate how individual design decisions can produce system-level outcomes, sometimes beneficial, sometimes negative and unintended. 

This article introduces the concept of emergence as one key characteristic of complex systems, situates it within systems thinking, and provides practical guidance for recognising and managing emergent behaviours in engineering practice.

 

1. What is a system?:

A system can be defined as “a set of interconnected elements organised to achieve a purpose” (Meadows, 2008). Systems possess structure (components), relationships (interactions), and purpose (function). Engineering systems such as aircraft, power grids, transport networks, or data infrastructures are composed of numerous subsystems that depend on each other. 

Crucially, systems thinking emphasises interdependence and feedback. The behaviour of the whole cannot be fully explained by the behaviour of the parts alone. Properties such as resilience, adaptability, and emergence result from interactions within the system’s structure and environment. Recognising these relationships is essential to understanding how system-level behaviours arise.

 

2. Understanding emergence:

Emergence describes the appearance of new patterns, properties, or behaviours at the system level that are not present in individual components. These properties are often irreducible: they cannot be explained solely by analysing each part separately (Holland, 2014). 

Researchers distinguish between: 

In engineering, most emergent behaviours are weakly emergent: complex yet explainable with sufficient data and computational tools such as agent-based modelling or system dynamics. 

A key caveat is that emergence depends on perspective and system boundaries. What seems emergent at one scale (e.g., the stability of a power grid) might appear straightforward when viewed at another. Therefore, engineers must define boundaries and assumptions clearly when analysing emergence. 

 

3. Why emergence matters in engineering:

Emergence shapes how engineering systems behave, evolve, and sometimes fail. It can produce both desired outcomes (like adaptability or resilience) and undesired ones (like instability or cascading failure). 

Understanding emergence enables engineers to: 

For instance, in cyber-physical systems, emergent coordination can enhance efficiency, but it may also create unpredictable vulnerabilities if feedback loops reinforce errors. Engineers therefore must not only observe emergence but learn how to influence it through design and governance. 

 

4. Recognising and managing emergent behaviour:

Engineers can identify emergence by looking for: 

Not all emergence is beneficial. Engineers often need to mitigate unwanted emergent behaviours such as instability or inefficiency while reinforcing desirable ones. Effective approaches include: 

Managing emergence requires humility: complex systems cannot be fully controlled, only influenced. The goal is to guide system dynamics toward safe and productive outcomes. 

 

5. Illustrative examples of emergence in engineering systems:

The Internet exemplifies emergence: billions of devices follow simple communication protocols, yet collectively create a resilient, adaptive global network. No single node dictates its performance; instead, routing efficiency and viral content propagation arise from local interactions among routers and users. 

Urban traffic patterns such as congestion waves, spontaneous lane formation, and adaptive rerouting emerge from individual driver behaviour and infrastructural design. Traffic engineers use simulation models to study how simple decision rules generate complex city-wide flows. 

Electrical grids maintain frequency and voltage stability through distributed interactions among generators, loads, and controllers. Emergent synchronisation enables reliability, but loss of coordination can cause cascading blackouts showing both beneficial and harmful emergence. 

In smart factories, machines and sensors collaborate autonomously, producing system-wide optimisation in scheduling and quality control. Adaptive algorithms and feedback loops create emergent flexibility beyond what central planning alone could achieve. 

 

6. Practical guidance for engineers and educators:

For engineers, the key is to design with emergence in mind: 

For educators, teaching emergence provides an opportunity to bridge theory and practice. Software such as NetLogo and Insight Maker allows students to visualise emergent behaviour through agent-based and system-dynamics models. Linking engineering examples to ecological, social, or digital systems helps learners appreciate the universality of emergence. 

 

Conclusion:

Emergence is not an anomaly to be avoided but a natural attribute of complex systems. It challenges traditional engineering by revealing that system behaviour often arises from relationships, not components. 

Understanding emergence equips engineers to recognise interdependencies, design adaptive solutions, and work with complexity rather than against it. By embracing systems thinking, engineers can create technologies that are not only functional but resilient, sustainable, and aligned with real-world dynamics.

 

References:

 

Any views, thoughts, and opinions expressed herein are solely that of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, policies, or position of the Engineering Professors’ Council or the Toolkit sponsors and supporters.  

Toolkit: Complex Systems Toolkit.

Author: James C Atuonwu, PhD, MIET, FHEA (NMITE).

Topic: Simulating pinch analysis and multi-stakeholder trade-offs.

Title: Modelling complexity in industrial decarbonisation.

Resource type: Teaching activity.

Relevant disciplines: Energy engineering; Chemical engineering; Process systems engineering; Mechanical engineering; Industrial engineering.

Keywords: Climate change; Modelling; Decarbonisation; Energy production; Heat integration; Optimisation; Stakeholders; Trade offs.

Licensing: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. It is based upon the author’s 2025 article “A Simulation Tool for Pinch Analysis and Heat Exchanger/Heat Pump Integration in Industrial Processes: Development and Application in Challenge-based Learning”. Education for Chemical Engineers 52, 141–150. 

Related INCOSE Competencies: Toolkit resources are designed to be applicable to any engineering discipline, but educators might find it useful to understand their alignment to competencies outlined by the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE). The INCOSE Competency Framework provides a set of 37 competencies for Systems Engineering within a tailorable framework that provides guidance for practitioners and stakeholders to identify knowledge, skills, abilities and behaviours crucial to Systems Engineering effectiveness.   A free spreadsheet version of the framework can be downloaded.

This resource relates to the Systems Thinking, Systems Modelling and Analysis and Critical Thinking INCOSE competencies.

AHEP mapping: This resource addresses several of the themes from the UK’s Accreditation of Higher Education Programmes fourth edition (AHEP4):  Analytical Tools and Techniques (critical to the ability to model and solve problems), and Integrated / Systems Approach (essential to the solution of broadly-defined problems). In addition, this resource addresses the themes of Science, mathematics and engineering principles; Problem analysis; and Design. 

Educational level: Intermediate.

Educational aim: To equip learners with the ability to model, analyse, and optimise pathways for industrial decarbonisation through a complex-systems lens – integrating technical, economic, and policy dimensions – while linking factory-level design decisions to wider value-chain dynamics, multi-stakeholder trade-offs, and long-term sustainability impacts. 
 

 

Learning and teaching notes: 

This teaching activity explores heat integration for the decarbonisation of industrial processes through the lens of complex systems thinking, combining simulation, systems-level modelling, and reflective scenario analysis. It is especially useful in modules related to energy systems, process systems, or sustainability.  

Learners analyse a manufacturing site’s energy system using a custom-built simulation tool to explore the energy, cost and carbon-emission trade-offs of different heat-integration strategies. They also reflect on system feedback, stakeholder interests and real-world resilience using causal loop diagrams and role-played decision frameworks.  

This activity frames industrial heat integration as a complex adaptive system, with interdependent subsystems such as process material streams, utilities, technology investments and deployments, capital costs, emissions, and operating constraints. 

Learners run the simulation tool to generate outputs to explore different systems integration strategies: pinch-based heat recovery by heat exchangers, with and without heat pump-based waste heat upgrade. Screenshots of the tool graphical user interface are attached as separate files:

The learning is delivered in part, through active engagement with the simulation tool. Learners interpret the composite and grand composite curves and process tables, to explore how system-level outcomes change across various scenarios. Learners explore, using their generated simulation outputs, how subsystems (e.g. hot and cold process streams, utilities) interact nonlinearly and with feedback effects (e.g., heat recovery impacts), shaping global system behaviour and revealing leverage points and emergent effects in economics, emissions and feasibility. 

Using these outputs as a baseline, and exploring other systems modelling options, learners evaluate trade-offs between heat recovery, capital expenditure (CAPEX), operating costs (OPEX), and carbon emissions, helping them develop systems-level thinking under constraints. 

The activity embeds scenario analysis, including causal loop diagrams, what-if disruption modelling, and stakeholder role-play, using multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) to develop strategic analysis and systems mapping skills. Interdisciplinary reasoning is encouraged across thermodynamics, economics, optimisation, engineering ethics, and climate policy, culminating in reflective thinking on system boundary definitions, trade-offs, sustainability transitions and resilience in industrial systems.  

Learners have the opportunity to: 

Teachers have the opportunity to: 

 

Downloads: 

 

Learning and teaching resources:

 

About the simulation tool (access and alternatives):

This activity uses a Streamlit-based simulation tool, supported with process data (Appendix A, Table 1, or an educator’s equivalent). The tool is freely available for educational use and can be accessed online through a secure link provided by the author on request (james.atuonwu@nmite.ac.uk or james.atuonwu@gmail.com). No installation or special setup is required; users can access it directly in a web browser. The activity can also be replicated using open-source or online pinch analysis tools such as OpenPinch, PyPinch PinCH, TLK-Energy Pinch Analysis Online. SankeyMATIC can be used for visualising energy balances and Sankey diagrams. 

Pinch Analysis, a systematic method for identifying heat recovery opportunities by analysing process energy flows, forms the backbone of the simulation. A brief explainer and further reading are provided in the resources section. Learners are assumed to have prior or guided exposure to its core principles. A key tunable parameter in Pinch Analysis, ΔTmin, represents the minimum temperature difference allowed between hot and cold process streams. It determines the required heat exchanger area, associated capital cost, controllability, and overall system performance. The teaching activity helps students explore these relationships dynamically through guided variation of ΔTmin in simulation, reflection, and trade-off analysis, as outlined below. 

 

Introducing and prioritising ΔTmin trade-offs:

ΔTmin is introduced early in the activity as a critical decision variable that balances heat recovery potential against capital cost, controllability, and safety. Students are guided to vary ΔTmin within the simulation tool to observe how small parameter shifts affect utility demands, exchanger area, and overall system efficiency. This provides immediate visual feedback through the composite and grand composite curves, helping them connect technical choices to system performance. 

Educators facilitate short debriefs using the discussion prompts in Part 1 and simulation-based sensitivity analysis in Part 2. Students compare low and high ΔTmin scenarios, reasoning about implications for process economics, operability, and energy resilience. 

This experiential sequence allows learners to prioritise competing factors (technical, economic, and operational), while recognising that small changes can create non-linear, system-wide effects. It reinforces complex systems principles such as feedback loops and leverage points that govern industrial energy behaviour. 

 

Data for decisions:

The simulator’s sidebar includes some default values for energy prices (e.g. gas and electricity tariffs) and emission factors (e.g. grid carbon intensity), which users can edit to reflect their own local or regional conditions. For those replicating the activity with other software tools, equivalent calculations of total energy costs, carbon emissions and all savings due to heat recovery investments can be performed manually using locally relevant tariffs and emission factors. 

The Part 1–3 tasks, prompts, and assessment suggestions below remain fully valid regardless of the chosen platform, ensuring flexibility and accessibility across different teaching contexts. 

 

Educator support and implementation notes:

The activity is designed to be delivered across 3 sessions (6–7.5 hours total), with flexibility to adapt based on depth of exploration, simulation familiarity, or group size. Each part can be run as a standalone module or integrated sequentially in a capstone-style format. 

 

Part 1: System mapping: (Time: 2 to 2.5 hours) – Ideal for a classroom session with blended instruction and group collaboration:

This stage introduces students to the foundational step of any heat integration analysis: system mapping. The aim is to identify and represent energy-carrying streams in a process plant, laying the groundwork for further system analysis. Educators may use the Process Flow Diagram of Fig. 1, Appendix A (from a real industrial setting: a food processing plant) or another Process Diagram, real or fictional. Students shall extract and identify thermal energy streams (hot/cold) within the system boundary and map energy balances before engaging with software to produce required simulation outputs. 

 

Key activities and concepts include: 

 

Discussion prompts: 

 

Student deliverables: 

 

Part 2: Running and interpreting process system simulation results (Time: 2 to 2.5 hours) – Suitable for lab or flipped delivery; only standard computer access is needed to run the tool (optional instructor demo can extend depth):

Students use the simulation tool to generate their own results. The process scenario of Fig. 1, Appendix A, with the associated stream data (Table 1) can be used as a baseline.
 

Tool-generated outputs:

 

Learning tasks:

1. Scenario sweeps
Run different scenarios (e.g., different ΔTmin levels, tariffs, emission factors, and Top-N HP selections).
Prompts: How do QREC, QHU/QCU, HX area, and CAPEX/OPEX/CO₂ shift across scenarios? Which lever moves the needle most? 

2. Group contrast (cases A vs B: see time-phased operations A & B in Appendix A)
Assign groups different cases; each reports system behaviours and trade-offs.
Prompts: Where do you see CAPEX vs. energy-recovery tension? Which case is more HP-friendly and why? 

3. Curve reading
Use the Composite & Grand Composite Curves to identify pinch points and bottlenecks; link features on the curves to the tabulated results.
Prompts: Where is the pinch? How does ΔTmin change the heat-recovery target and utility demands? 

4. Downstream implications
Trace how curve-level insights show up in HX sizing/costs and HP options.
Prompts: When does adding HP reduce utilities vs. just shifting costs? Where do stream temperatures/CP constrain integration? 

5. Systems lens: feedback and leverage
Map short causal chains from the results (e.g., tariffs → HP use → electricity cost → OPEX; grid-carbon → HP emissions → net CO₂).
Prompts: Which levers (ΔTmin, tariffs, EFs, Top-N) create reinforcing or balancing effects? 

 

Outcome:

Students will be able to generate and interpret industrial simulation outputs, linking technical findings to economic and emissions consequences through a systems-thinking lens. They begin by tracing simple cause–effect chains from the simulation data and progressively translate these into causal loop diagrams (CLDs) that visualise reinforcing and balancing feedback. Through this, learners develop the ability to explain how system structure drives performance both within the plant and across its broader industrial and policy environment. 

Optional extension: Educators may provide 2–3 predefined subsystem options (e.g., low-CAPEX HX network, high-COP HP integration, hybrid retrofit) for comparison. Students can use a decision matrix to justify their chosen configuration against CAPEX, OPEX, emissions, and controllability trade-offs. 

 

Part 3: Systems thinking through scenario analysis (Time: 2 to 2.5 hours) – Benefits from larger-group facilitation, a whiteboard or Miro board (optional), and open discussion. It is rich in systems pedagogy:

Having completed simulation-based pinch analysis and heat recovery planning, learners now shift focus to strategic implementation challenges faced in real-world industrial settings. In this part, students apply systems thinking to explore the broader implications of their heat integration simulation output scenarios, moving beyond process optimisation to consider real-world dynamics, trade-offs, and stakeholder interactions. The goal is to encourage students to interrogate the interconnectedness of decisions, feedback loops, and unintended consequences in process energy systems including but not limited to operational complexity, resilience to disruptions, and alignment with long-term sustainability goals. 

Activity: Stakeholder role play / Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis 
Students take on stakeholder roles and debate which design variant or operating strategy should be prioritised. They then conduct a Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA), evaluating each option based on criteria such as CAPEX, OPEX savings, emissions reductions, risk, and operational ease. 

Stakeholders include:

The team must present a strategic analysis showing how the heat recovery system behaves as a complex adaptive system, and how its implementation can be optimised to balance technical, financial, environmental, and human considerations. 

 

Optional STOP for questions and activities:

Before constructing causal loop diagrams (CLDs), learners revisit key results from their simulation — such as ΔTmin, tariffs, emission factors, and system costs — and trace how these parameters interact to influence overall system performance. Educators guide this transition, helping students abstract quantitative outputs (e.g., changes in QREC, OPEX, or CO₂) into qualitative feedback relationships that reveal cause-and-effect chains. This scaffolding helps bridge the gap between process simulation and systems-thinking representation, supporting discovery of reinforcing and balancing feedback structures. 

 

Instructor guidance:
Each student or small subgroup first constructs a causal loop diagram (CLD) from the viewpoint of their assigned stakeholder (e.g., operations, finance, environment). They then reconvene to integrate these perspectives into a single, shared system map, revealing conflicting goals, reinforcing and balancing feedback, and common leverage points. This two-step approach mirrors real-world decision dynamics and strengthens collective systems understanding. Support materials such as a CLD starter template and a stakeholder impact matrix may be provided to assist instructors in scaffolding systems-thinking activities.

 

Discussion prompts:

 

Instructor debrief (engineering context with simulation linkage):
After students share their CLDs, the educator facilitates a short discussion linking their identified reinforcing and balancing loops to common dynamic patterns observable in the simulation results. For instance: 

This reflection connects quantitative model outputs (e.g. QREC, OPEX, CAPEX, emissions) to qualitative system behaviours, helping learners recognise leverage points and understand how design choices interact across technical, economic, and social dimensions of decarbonisation. 

Activity: Explore “What if?” scenarios 

Working in groups, students choose one scenario to explore using a systems lens:

Each group evaluates the resilience and flexibility of the proposed integration design. They consider:

Educators may add advanced scenarios (e.g. carbon tax introduction, supplier failure, or project delay) to challenge students’ resilience modelling and stakeholder negotiation skills.

 

Stakeholder impact reflection:

To extend systems reasoning beyond the technical domain, students assess how their chosen design scenarios (e.g., low vs. high ΔTmin, with or without heat pump integration) affect each stakeholder group. For instance: 

Each team member rates perceived benefits, risks, or compromises under each design case, and the results are summarised in a stakeholder impact matrix or discussion table. This exercise links quantitative system metrics (energy recovery, emissions, cost) to qualitative stakeholder outcomes, reinforcing the “multi-layered feedback” perspective central to complex systems analysis. 

 

Learning Outcomes (Part 3): 

By the end of this part, students will be able to:

 

Instructor Note – Guiding CLD and archetype exploration:

Moving from numerical heat-exchange and cost data to CLD archetypes can be conceptually challenging. Instructors are encouraged to model this process by identifying at least one reinforcing loop (e.g. “energy savings → lower OPEX → more investment in recovery → further savings”) and one balancing loop (e.g. “higher capital cost → reduced investment → lower heat recovery”). Relating these loops to common system archetypes such as “Limits to Growth” or “Balancing with Delay” helps students connect engineering data to broader system dynamics and locate potential leverage points. The activity concludes with students synthesising their findings from simulation, systems mapping, and stakeholder analysis into a coherent reflection on complex system behaviour and sustainable design trade-offs. 

 

Assessment guidance: 

This assessment builds directly on the simulation and systems-thinking activities completed by students. Learners generate and interpret their own simulation outputs (or equivalent open-source pinch analysis results), using these to justify engineering and strategic decisions under uncertainty. 

Assessment focuses on students’ ability to integrate quantitative analysis (energy, cost, carbon) with qualitative reasoning (feedbacks, trade-offs, stakeholder dynamics), demonstrating holistic systems understanding. 

 

Deliverables (portfolio; individual or group):

1. Reading and interpretation of simulation outputs

Use the outputs you generate (composite & grand composite curves: HX match/area/cost tables; HP pairing/ranking; summary sheets of QHU, QCU, QREC, COP, CAPEX, OPEX, CO₂, paybacks) for a different industrial process (from the one used in the main learning activity) to: 

2. Systems mapping and scenario reasoning 

3. Decision memo (max 2 pages) 

Students should include a short reflective note addressing assumptions, feedback insights, and how their stakeholder perspective shaped their recommendation. 

 

Appendix A: Example process scenario for teaching activity:

The following process scenario explains the industrial context behind the main teaching activity simulations. A large-scale food processing plant operates a milk product manufacturing line. The process, part of which is shown in Fig. 1, involves the following: 

In real operations, the evaporation subprocess occurs at different times from the cooking/separation, oven and pre-finishing operations. This means that their hot and cold process streams are not simultaneously available for direct heat exchange. For a realistic industrial pinch analysis, the process is thus split into two time slices: 

Separate pinch analyses are performed for each slice, using the yellow-highlighted sections of Table 1 as stream data for time slice A, and the green-highlighted sections as stream data for time slice B. Any heat recovery between slices would require thermal storage (e.g., a hot-water tank) to bridge the time gap. 

Fig.1. Simplified process flowsheet of food manufacturing facility.

 

Note on storage and system boundaries:

Because the two sub-processes occur at different times, direct process-to-process heat exchange between their streams is not possible without thermal storage. If storage is introduced: 

 

Table 1. Process stream data corresponding to flowsheet of Fig. 1. Yellow-highlighted sections represent processes available at time slice A, while green-highlighted sections are processes available at time slice B.

 

Appendix B: Suggested marking rubric (Editable):

Adopter note: The rubric below is a suggested template. Instructors may adjust criteria language, weightings and band thresholds to align with local policies and learning outcomes. No marks depend on running software. 

1) Interpretation of Simulation Outputs — 25% 

2) Systems Thinking & Scenario Analysis — 30% 

3) Stakeholder & Implementation Insight — 20% 

4) Decision Quality & Justification — 15% 

5) Communication & Presentation — 10% 

 

References:

 

Any views, thoughts, and opinions expressed herein are solely that of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, policies, or position of the Engineering Professors’ Council or the Toolkit sponsors and supporters.  

Toolkit: Complex Systems Toolkit.

Author: Dr. Stuart Grey, SFHEA (University of Glasgow).

Topic: Student created interactive simulation for complex sociotechnical systems.

Title: LLM-driven interactive simulation for complex sociotechnical systems.

Resource type: Teaching activity.

Relevant disciplines: Any.

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Large Language Model; Sociotechnical systems; Ethics; Modelling or simulation; Emergence.

Licensing: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. It is based upon the author’s article “Enhancing Ethical Reasoning in Engineering Education through Student-Created Interactive Ethical Scenarios Using Generative AI,” 2025 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON), London, United Kingdom, 2025, pp. 1-5, doi: 10.1109/EDUCON62633.2025.11016531. 

Downloads: 

Related INCOSE Competencies: Toolkit resources are designed to be applicable to any engineering discipline, but educators might find it useful to understand their alignment to competencies outlined by the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE). The INCOSE Competency Framework provides a set of 37 competencies for Systems Engineering within a tailorable framework that provides guidance for practitioners and stakeholders to identify knowledge, skills, abilities and behaviours crucial to Systems Engineering effectiveness.  A free spreadsheet version of the framework can be downloaded.

This resource relates to the Systems Thinking, Life Cycle, Configuration Management, Requirements Definition, Verification, and Validation INCOSE Competencies. 

AHEP mapping: This resource addresses several of the themes from the UK’s Accreditation of Higher Education Programmes fourth edition (AHEP4):  Analytical Tools and Techniques (critical to the ability to model and solve problems), and Integrated / Systems Approach (essential to the solution of broadly-defined problems). In addition, this resource addresses AHEP themes of Ethics and Communication. 

Education level: Intermediate.

 

Learners have the opportunity to: 

Teachers have the opportunity to: 

 

Overview:

This resource enables engineering students to create, run, and debug a text‑based, interactive simulation of a complex sociotechnical system using a Large Language Model (LLM). It is intentionally flexible and may be delivered as a multi‑session studio activity (including assessment) or used solely as a compact assessment.

  

Purpose and use:

In both modes, students design a robust text prompt, test it with a user, document changes, and submit auditable artefacts that evidence learning. The key activity is interrogating their own thinking on how complex systems should be modelled by making judgements as to how their game does and does not capture the system dynamics. 

 

Why and how: 

The approach aims to give students hands-on experience in putting systems thinking into practice. Concepts such as stakeholders, feedback loops, delays, uncertainty, and emergent behaviour can be implemented and interrogated without heavy tooling.  

The submission is a text LLM prompt with tracked changes, which allows students to demonstrate system design and debugging, produce transparent process evidence, and scale to large cohorts with minimal infrastructure. 

 

Delivery options at a glance:

Audience Undergraduate Years 2–4 and taught MSc, any engineering discipline 
Modes Studio activity (3–5×2 h + independent study) or Assessment‑only (prompt‑only; 1–2×2 h + 4–6 h)
Teams 3–4 students (solo permitted for assessment‑only) 
Assessment Portfolio (studio) or prompt‑plus‑change‑log (assessment‑only) 
Platforms Institutional Copilot licences successful; encourage exploration of free tools (students record model/version)

 

Materials and software:

 

Delivery modes:

Mode A — Studio activity (3–5 sessions) 

Mode B — Assessment‑only (prompt‑only; 1–2 sessions) 

In both modes, module leaders may supply a predefined scenario(s) to standardise scope and simplify marking. A ready‑to‑use example is provided in Appendix C. 

 

Assessment:

Studio portfolio — rubric (suggested weighting):

Criterion  A  B  C  D–E  % 
Complexity modelling  Clear boundary; rich stakeholders; ≥4 correct loops; delays explicit; coherent KPIs  Mostly sound  Basic map  Superficial  25 
Simulation design and prompt quality  Consistent state logic; visible feedbacks/delays; non‑linearity; negative choices allowed with consequences; clear commands  Mostly coherent  Playable but brittle  Confusing/linear  25 
Debugging evidence  Systematic play‑tests; clear issue → fix → re‑test artefacts  Some iteration  Minimal  None  20 
Insight and reflection  Deep analysis of emergence, trade‑offs, equity, uncertainty, and LLM limits  Good  Descriptive  Vague  20 
Communication and referencing  Clear, concise, correct Harvard referencing  Minor issues  Adequate  Disorganised  10 

 

Assessment‑only (prompt‑only) — compact rubric: 

 

Scenario options: 

Students may propose their own topic or the module leader may supply a predefined scenario. Options suited to UK engineering contexts include: 

 

Appendix A — Prompt template (simulation + debug‑ready): 

Title: Complex Systems Simulator — [Scenario] 

Purpose: Run a turn‑based interactive simulation of a complex sociotechnical system. Track named state variables, apply feedback and delays, and let the player’s decisions drive non‑linear outcomes. 

Setup: 

  1) Offer three roles (distinct authority/constraints). 

  2) Introduce 3–5 NPCs with clear goals and plausible interventions. 

  3) Show a dashboard of [STATE_VARIABLES] each turn with short context. 

State rules: 

Commands: status, talk [npc], inspect [asset], implement [policy], pilot [intervention], advance time, review log. 

Debug commands (for testing): trace on/off (print update logic), why (state which loops/delays drove the change), show variables (print current state table), revert (roll back one turn), reseed (slight exogenous shock). 

Realism and ethics: Allow all plausible actions and report consequences neutrally. If unsafe in the real world, refuse, propose safer alternatives, and continue with plausible systemic effects. 

LLM pitfalls to avoid: Do not invent new variables; ask clarifying questions rather than guessing; keep outputs concise; summarise trajectory every five turns. 

Begin: Greet the player, state the scenario, ask for a role, and wait. 

 

Appendix B — Debugging and play‑test checklist: 

Functional coherence 

Robustness 

User experience and clarity 

Report 

 

Appendix C — Predefined scenario (Urban Heatwave Response, UK city): 

Boundary: One UK local authority area during the July–August heatwave period. Focus on public health, energy demand, and community resilience. 

Roles: (1) Local Authority Resilience Lead; (2) NHS Trust Capacity Manager; (3) Distribution Network Operator (DNO) Duty Engineer. 

Stakeholders: Residents (with a focus on vulnerable groups), care homes, schools, SMEs, DNO, local NHS Trust, emergency services, voluntary/community groups, Met Office (for alerts), and local media. 

State variables (examples): Heat‑health alert level (0–4); Emergency Department occupancy (%); Electricity demand/capacity (% of peak); Indoor temperature exceedance hours (hrs > 27 °C); Public trust (0–100); Budget (£); Equity index (0–100). 

Events/shocks: Red heat alert; substation fault; procurement delay; misinformation spike on social media; transport disruption; community centre cooling failure. 

KPIs and stop conditions: Heat‑related admissions; unserved energy; cost variance; equity gap across wards. Stop if alert level 4 persists >3 days, budget overspends >10%, or trust <25. 

Notes for assessors: Using a standard, predefined scenario simplifies marking and ensures comparable complexity across teams, while still allowing for diverse strategies and outcomes. 

 

Any views, thoughts, and opinions expressed herein are solely that of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, policies, or position of the Engineering Professors’ Council or the Toolkit sponsors and supporters.  

Toolkit: Complex Systems Toolkit.

Author: Mariam Makramalla, PhD, FRSA (New Giza University).

Topic: Integrating complex systems learning outcomes in engineering curricula.

Title: How to scaffold complex systems learning outcomes across a curriculum.

Resource type: Guidance article.

Relevant disciplines: Any.

Keywords: Learning outcomes; Pedagogy; Curriculum; Curriculum map; Critical thinking; Problem-solving; Life cycle; Decision-making . 

Licensing: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. 

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Who is this article for?: This article should be read by educators at all levels of higher education looking to embed and integrate complex systems topics into curriculum, module, and / or programme design.   

 

Premise:  

Teaching and learning engineering carries with it a double layer of complexity. On the one hand, this complexity is connected to the growing interdisciplinary nature of engineering itself. On the other hand, the complexity is connected to the growing diversity of engineering students that are often present in one project team. This multifaceted complexity requires a re-envisioned understanding of the role and purpose of the engineering educator.  

With the growing trend of a global classroom reality, we often find that learners in the classroom are representing different cultures, which in turn are rooted in them unconsciously carrying historical and socio-cultural baggage relating to these cultures. Thus, it becomes crucial to unpack the challenge and potential that such a diverse collective intelligence can offer to an engineering learning experience.  

As our understanding of the engineering discipline gets more rooted and interconnected with the precarious reality that our world is witnessing today, it becomes essential that the engineering education community would take up a proactive role in actively contributing to the formation of engineering citizenship. In other words, every engineering student should be educated as a citizen that has mastered the engineering cross-cutting fields in such a way that they are free to create and solve problems of the present and the future.  

With this in mind, it becomes very clear that the one-size-fits all model of a single discipline engineering classroom can no longer sustain itself. It does not factor in the richness that a diverse student body can offer, and it dilutes the value and potential of an engineering learner to think clearly or solve problems. It is therefore imperative that engineering educators grasp the complex reality of an integrated engineering discipline and address it in a way that fosters scaffolding of diverse knowledge. Some students might specialise in one core technical discipline. Yet, future projections for most students showcase the need to have a wide level of exposure to broader competency development. Students need to learn to understand the field of engineering at large and to develop system thinking skills that enable them to exist, challenge and have an impact on the system that they are a part of.  

 

How to scaffold learning outcomes in a complex engineering curriculum:

The below table has been designed for embedding Complex Systems Learning Outcomes across an engineering curriculum. It maps against competencies and suggests scaffolding techniques across educational levels. It is also important to note, that efforts need to be made to align to the relevant AHEP requirements or other accreditation standards. Table 1 presents the different strands of the Complex Systems Engineering Curriculum, colour coded in line with the INCOSE Competency Framework outline (INCOSE, 2025). Table 2 presents a practical guide for educators to scaffold Complex Systems learning outcomes across a curriculum. The intention is for the scaffolding framework to compare the trade-offs between different elements of the competency group. For example, system modelling and analysis as an element from the core competency and planning from the management competency. The table suggests activities that would integrate different competencies together in a scaffolded approach.  

Table 1. Competency Areas for Complex Systems (INCOSE, 2025).

Table 1 presents Competency Areas for Complex Systems. As mentioned, the skills range to include a wide variety of competencies, thereby enabling a solid and grounded systems thinking approach for students. As students approach their learning, they go through a series of development stages that gradually build up student level of expertise until they reach the stage of what the INCOSE competency framework refers to as a lead practitioner role. Building on the competencies of the complex system toolkit presented in Table 1, Table 2 presents a potential outline for a scaffolding framework that maps varying threads of the framework in a way that enables scaffolded activities at every developmental stage for learners. Depending on the learning context and educational level, educators can choose which level of attainment is appropriate to their curriculum.  

Table 2. Scaffolding Complex Systems Learning Outcomes across the curriculum 

 

Discussion and next steps:

As we are approaching the fuzzy front end to complexity in engineering pedagogy, as educators we need to be constantly toggling between devising frameworks, being informed by literature, contextualising ideas, validating these in our classrooms and repeating this cycle to continually fine-tune our complex teaching navigational complexity framework. The invitation is open for all educators who would like to connect as we continue to explore different ways of developing responsible engineers who leave a lasting and sustainable mark transforming their stationed realities.  

 

References:

   

Any views, thoughts, and opinions expressed herein are solely that of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, policies, or position of the Engineering Professors’ Council or the Toolkit sponsors and supporters.  

 

Toolkit: Complex Systems Toolkit.

Author: Dr. Rebecca Margetts (Nottingham Trent University).

Topic: The importance of teaching and learning about complex systems.

Title: The real world is a complex system.

Resource type: Knowledge article.

Relevant disciplines: Any.

Keywords: Problem solving; Feedback loops; Decision-making; VUCA; Optimisation; Public health and safety; Risk; Sustainability; Ethics; Responsible design; Life cycle; Societal impact; Enterprise and innovation.

Licensing: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. 

Downloads: 

Learning and teaching resources:

Who is this article for?: This article should be read by educators at all levels in higher education who are seeking an overall perspective on teaching approaches for integrating complex systems in engineering education. 

Related INCOSE Competencies: Toolkit resources are designed to be applicable to any engineering discipline, but educators might find it useful to understand their alignment to competencies outlined by the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE). The INCOSE Competency Framework provides a set of 37 competencies for Systems Engineering within a tailorable framework that provides guidance for practitioners and stakeholders to identify knowledge, skills, abilities and behaviours crucial to Systems Engineering effectiveness. A free spreadsheet version of the framework can be downloaded.

This resource relates to the Systems Thinking and Critical Thinking INCOSE competencies.

AHEP mapping: This resource addresses several of the themes from the UK’s Accreditation of Higher Education Programmes fourth edition (AHEP4):  Analytical Tools and Techniques (critical to the ability to model and solve problems), and Integrated / Systems Approach (essential to the solution of broadly-defined problems). 

 

Premise: 

We live in a complex world. Complexity is a key challenge, captured in leadership terms by the VUCA framework: volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (Lanucha 2024). Engineers have the privilege of creating products and processes for humans to use in this landscape. Each of these likely has numerous parts which interact, as well as interacting with the environment, people, and needing to meet a host of safety, quality, sustainability, ethics, and financial obligations. Traditionally, engineers analyse problems by breaking them down into simple parts. This helps understanding and makes calculations feasible, but it’s easy to lose understanding of the whole system. Any change can easily create a problem elsewhere. From a technical viewpoint, engineers need to understand this interconnectedness in order for their creations to work. In a wider sense, ‘systems thinking’ is a skill central to engineering quality and management techniques, which seek to rationalise the complexity of entire organisations and their ever-changing market pressures.  

 

The case for understanding systems: 

Systems is perhaps one of the most misunderstood words in engineering. It is often found combined with mathematical modelling or control – topics often perceived as challenging – and is used in other fields like Computer Science, where tools and models are different. In all cases, the idea revolves around a group of interacting or interrelated elements which form a unified whole. Those elements can be physical or information, hardware or software, or any combination of mechanical, electrical, and other engineering domains. Thinking in terms of systems can therefore be thought of as a holistic approach.  

The Engineering Council UK’s AHEP criteria include a systems approach: C/M6 – “Apply an integrated or systems approach to the solution of complex problems.” Several other AHEP criteria also reference complexity and complex problems, which they define as having “no obvious solution and may involve wide-ranging or conflicting technical issues and/or user needs that can be addressed through creativity and the resourceful application of engineering science. The Systems Thinking Alliance (2025) gives a broader definition of complexity as referring to “the condition of systems, objects, phenomena, or concepts that are challenging to understand, explain, or manage due to their intricate and interconnected nature. It involves multiple elements or factors that interact in unpredictable ways, often requiring significant information, time, or coordinated efforts to address.” For these, there is no ‘one-size-fits-all solution’ (Ellis 2025). This is the reality that engineers need to manage by understanding the potential effects on all parts of the system. 

In order to analyse, engineers dissect complexity into manageable components, and educators teach these simple components before moving onto more complex systems. For example, students initially learn basic electrical components, simple beams, rigid bodies, etc. before bringing these together in case studies, and then moving onto topics like mechatronic systems. Historically, engineers specialised on graduation, perhaps becoming a stress engineer or fluid dynamicist in dedicated offices and functional teams.  A design decision by one team could have unintended consequences for another, as well as additional uncertainty. The advent of cross-functional project and ‘matrix’ organisations mitigated against this, and companies have moved towards attribute teams which can consider the balance of behaviour. Even so, some uncertainty remains in the form of assumptions in calculations, changes in material properties with temperature or stress, or small variations in composition and manufacturing tolerances, which can all accumulate. Any parts which are bought ‘off-the-shelf’ or made by other companies under license must be carefully specified. Relationships can be nonlinear – or even chaotic – and contain feedback loops which can amplify changes (Kastens et al 2009). This all increases the risk of a product’s comfort, performance, and safety being impacted in ways that weren’t anticipated. Any problem that doesn’t come to light until the testing phase – late in the design process – represents costly redesigns and delays. In the unlikely event that a problem isn’t captured during testing either, the outcome could be disastrous. 

Systems engineers will bring the product together and establish these complex behaviours through models and testing. Identifying potential problems early in the design phase can save significant money and facilitate better designs. This can be challenging, especially for systems using novel materials or operating in extreme environments, which aren’t accurately captured by standard calculations. Models may be linearised, neglect external forcing, or be derived for an assumed air density or ambient temperature which may not be valid. In recent decades, the engineering industry has moved towards model-based design and virtual prototyping, facilitated by advances in computer tools. These are increasingly sophisticated, but models still need to be built by engineers with an appreciation of complexity and the mechanisms by which a problem could arise. As humans develop new materials and technologies, and explore the limits of what is possible, engineering techniques and calculations need constant revision, and software tools are frequently updated to facilitate this.  

That holistic view of problems has benefits outside of designing engineering artefacts. The manufacturing process is itself a complex system with potentially long supply chains. As is the organisation, which is comprised of numerous people operating in a landscape of financial pressures, employment law, politics and culture. Quality guru William Deming’s 14 Points for Management (Deming 2018) can be viewed as a systems approach to handling this complexity, by breaking down barriers between departments and instigating continuous improvement. Once a product is produced, it exists in a wider world and continues to interact with it. From a sustainability viewpoint, this can be the user and surrounding community, the environmental impact over a product’s lifecycle, and the financial markets which dictate whether a product is viable. It can also be the social, political, and legal landscapes: these can place direct constraints in the forms of laws governing safety and emissions (such as the UK’s legally binding target of net zero by 2050), or through embargos, tariffs, and subsidies. Each country has its own regulations, which can necessitate multiple variations of a product: a good example is cars, which need to be produced in both left- and right-hand drive, satisfy varying safety and emissions regulations, and cater for differing personal and cultural preferences for size, noise, usage and driving styles. Even when not legislated, a company might choose to support fair trade, lead the way in sustainable practices, or refuse to do business with suppliers or regimes they find objectionable – potentially making this a key part of their brand.  

An engineer’s ability to appreciate and understand the wider social and business landscape is a reason why finance and management consultancy companies can often be seen recruiting engineers at student careers fairs. The Sainsbury Management Fellowship (SMF) scheme notably develops UK engineers as industry leaders, and fellows have made a major contribution to the UK’s economic prosperity (RAEng 2025). 

 

Conclusions:

Complex systems are the “real world” that engineers attempt to understand and design for. They are complicated, interconnected, changing, and uncertain. The well-known part of engineering is analysis: breaking systems into understandable parts. There needs to be a parallel operation where those parts are assembled or integrated into a whole, and that whole interacts with everything around it. This is where unforeseen problems can occur. Systems models and a holistic systems thinking approach can mitigate this risk. A systems approach and ability to manage complexity is a key skill for engineers, and positions them well for other fields like management.   

 

References:

 

Any views, thoughts, and opinions expressed herein are solely that of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, policies, or position of the Engineering Professors’ Council or the Toolkit sponsors and supporters.  

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