Systems engineering is an interdisciplinary field of engineering and engineering management that focuses on how to design and manage complex systems over their life cycles. At its core, systems engineering utilizes systems thinking principles to organize this body of knowledge. The individual outcome of such efforts, an engineered system, can be defined as a combination of components that work in synergy to collectively perform a useful function.Issues such as requirements engineering, reliability, logistics, coordination of different teams, testing and evaluation, maintainability and many other disciplines necessary for successful system development, design, implementation, and ultimate decommission become more difficult when dealing with large or complex projects. Systems engineering deals with work-processes, optimization methods, and risk management tools in such projects. It overlaps technical and human-centered disciplines such as industrial engineering, mechanical engineering, manufacturing engineering, control engineering, software engineering, electrical engineering, cybernetics, organizational studies, civil engineering and project management. Systems engineering ensures that all likely aspects of a project or system are considered, and integrated into a whole.The systems engineering process is a discovery process that is quite unlike a manufacturing process. A manufacturing process is focused on repetitive activities that achieve high quality outputs with minimum cost and time. The systems engineering process must begin by discovering the real problems that need to be resolved, and identifying the most probable or highest impact failures that can occur – systems engineering involves finding solutions to these problems.

系統(tǒng)工程是工程和工程管理的一個(gè)跨學(xué)科領(lǐng)域，關(guān)注于如何設(shè)計(jì)和管理復(fù)雜系統(tǒng)的生命周期。系統(tǒng)工程的核心是利用系統(tǒng)思維原則來(lái)組織這一知識(shí)體系。這些工作的單個(gè)結(jié)果，即一個(gè)工程系統(tǒng)，可以定義為協(xié)同工作以共同執(zhí)行有用功能的組件的組合。在處理大型或復(fù)雜的項(xiàng)目時(shí)，諸如需求工程、可靠性、物流、不同團(tuán)隊(duì)的協(xié)調(diào)、測(cè)試和評(píng)估、可維護(hù)性以及許多其他成功的系統(tǒng)開(kāi)發(fā)、設(shè)計(jì)、實(shí)現(xiàn)和最終退役所必需的規(guī)程等問(wèn)題變得更加困難。系統(tǒng)工程處理此類項(xiàng)目中的工作流程、優(yōu)化方法和風(fēng)險(xiǎn)管理工具。它與工業(yè)工程、機(jī)械工程、制造工程、控制工程、軟件工程、電氣工程、控制論、組織研究、土木工程和項(xiàng)目管理等以技術(shù)和人為中心的學(xué)科交叉。系統(tǒng)工程確保考慮到項(xiàng)目或系統(tǒng)的所有可能方面，并將其集成到一個(gè)整體中。系統(tǒng)工程過(guò)程是一個(gè)發(fā)現(xiàn)過(guò)程，它與制造過(guò)程非常不同。制造過(guò)程的重點(diǎn)是重復(fù)的活動(dòng)，以最低的成本和時(shí)間實(shí)現(xiàn)高質(zhì)量的輸出。系統(tǒng)工程過(guò)程必須從發(fā)現(xiàn)需要解決的真正問(wèn)題開(kāi)始，并確定可能發(fā)生的最可能的或影響最大的故障——系統(tǒng)工程包括找到這些問(wèn)題的解決方案。