Although usually well‎-funded‎,‎ systems development projects are often late to market and over budget‎.‎ Worse still‎,‎ many are obsolete before they can be deployed or the program is cancelled before delivery‎.‎ Clearly‎,‎ it is time for a new approach‎.‎ With coverage ranging from the complex characteristics and behaviors of enterprises to the challenges they pose for engineering and technology‎,‎ Enterprise Systems Engineering‎:‎ Advances in the Theory and Practice examines the impacts of enterprise processes and leading‎-edge technologies on the evolution of an enterprise‎.‎ As much about history as it is about systems engineering‎,‎ this book provides a snapshot of the early thinking in enterprise systems engineering‎-a snapshot taken before the memory of its perspective is corrupted by time‎.‎ It discusses emerging methods essential to successful systems engineering‎.‎ The editors define and examine key building blocks of the evolving field of enterprise systems engineering‎.‎ They address the issues of the changing nature of systems engineering‎,‎ lay out a recommended direction for the future‎,‎ and provide a unified basis for moving toward a mature discipline with the expanded scope‎.‎ During the last decade‎,‎ something has changed in the way people work together‎.‎ Seldom do isolated groups work on local problems to build stove‎-pipe solutions and systems seldom are developed in a social‎,‎ political‎,‎ economic‎,‎ or technical vacuum‎.‎ Yet concerted attempts to better implement systems engineering seemed not to improve the situation‎.‎ Standing on the threshold of a new era in systems engineering‎,‎ the editors point an arrow in the direction of systems engineering evolution‎,‎ a direction that is equal parts social change and technological change‎.‎