Arthur D. Hall Quotes

14 Sourced Quotes

The basic functional elements of any automatic control system: sensing, converting, storing, communicating, computing, programming, regulating, actuating, and display (Chestnut, 1967). Many kinds of systems in being, speculated about, or even intuited, ranging from computers, most factory processes, communication systems, road networks, automatic farms, etc., have structures which can be invoked as zero-order matches to proposed sets of throughputs, especially for single- thread designs. This method of structuring is related closely to analogical design, of which a special form is called synectics.

Arthur D. Hall
Synthesis of systems is much more difficult. Here science and engineering begin to take on aspects of art. A systems designer or planner not only must construct systems that work harmoniously individually and in tandem, he must also know a lot about the environment that the system is intended to match. Consideration of environmental factors requires foresight and experience; no one can ever foresee all the variables of importance and a choice of which to include is often a difficult one to make.

Arthur D. Hall
A system is a set of objects with relationships between the … in may be described generally as a complex of elements or components directly or indirectly related in a causal network, … Also, we are mainly interested in systems within which some process is continually going on, including an interchange with an environment across the boundary. It is generally agreed that when we deal with the more open system with a highly flexible structure, the distinction between the boundaries and the environment becomes a more and more arbitrary matter, dependent upon the purpose of the observer.

Arthur D. Hall
Has mankind evolved to a point that there exists, or that with creative additions and re-combinations of modest proportions, there can be shown to be available, a common systems methodology, in terms of which we can conceive of, plan, design, construct, and use systems (procedures, machines, teams of people) of any arbitrary type in the service of mankind, and with low rates of failure?

Arthur D. Hall
For any given system, the environment is the set of all objects whose behaviour is influenced by the behaviour of the primary system, and those objects whose behaviour influences the behavior of the primary system.

Arthur D. Hall
Unfortunately, the word "system" has many colloquial meanings, some of which have no place in scientific discussion. In order to exclude such meanings, and at the same time provide a starting point for exposition we state the following definition:
A system is a set of objects together with relationships between the objects and their attributes.
Our definition does imply of course that a system has properties, functions or purposes distinct from its constituent objects, relationships and attributes.

Arthur D. Hall
For a given system, the environment is the set of all objects outside the system: (1) a change in whose attributes affect the system and (2) whose attributes are changed by the behavior of the system.

Arthur D. Hall
In our definition of system we noted that all systems have interrelationships between objects and between their attributes. If every part of the system is so related to every other part that any change in one aspect results in dynamic changes in all other parts of the total system, the system is said to behave as a whole or coherently. At the other extreme is a set of parts that are completely unrelated: that is, a change in each part depends only on that part alone. The variation in the set is the physical sum of the variations of the parts. Such behavior is called independent or physical summativity.

Arthur D. Hall
Every part of the system is so related to every other part that a change in a particular part causes a changes in all other parts and in the total system

Arthur D. Hall
The plan of the present paper is to discuss properties of systems more or less abstractly; that is to define system and to describe the properties that are common to many systems and which serve to characterize them all.

Arthur D. Hall
History becomes one model needed to give a rounded view of our subject within the philosophy of hierarchical holographic modeling, defined as using a family of models at several levels to seek understanding of diverse aspects of a subject and thus comprehend the whole.

Arthur D. Hall
It is time to employ fractal geometry and its associated subjects of chaos and nonlinear dynamics to study systems engineering methodology (SEM). Systematic codification of the former is barely 15 years old, while codification of the latter began 45 years ago... Fractal geometry and chaos theory can convey a new level of understanding to systems engineering and make it more effective

Arthur D. Hall
Systems engineering is most effectively conceived of as a process that starts with the detection of a problem and continues through problem definition, planning and designing of a system, manufacturing or other implementing section, its use, and finally on to its obsolescence. Further, Systems engineering is not a matter of tools alone; It is a careful coordination of process, tools and people.

Arthur D. Hall
For any given set of objects it is impossible to say that no interrelationships exist.

Arthur D. Hall