Preface

The purpose of this book is to foster discussion on the current applications in the field of engineering safety by learning from previous system failures. This book contains various application examples to promote a holistic view to manage and therefore mitigate system failures. The predominant worldview in the current engineering arena is that system fail‐ ures can be prevented at the design phase. This worldview is obvious if we examine the mainstream, current methodologies for managing the system failures. These methodologies use a reductionist approach. And it is often pointed out that most of such methodologies have difficulty coping with emergent properties in a proactive manner and preventing the introduction of various side effects from quick (i.e., temporary) fixes, which lead to repeat‐ ing failures of similar type. This book intends to provide managers with a comprehensive overview of the current state-of-the-art praxises in the field of engineering safety by holisti‐ cally examining the system failures to prevent further occurrence. Also, it provides manag‐ ers with a bird's-eye view learning from various approaches through utilizing system of system methodologies (SOSMs). The brief introduction and core concept of SOSMs are pro‐ vided in the introductory chapter. On the basis of SOSM framework, various approaches are developed for risk management and engineering system failure arena, that is, system of sys‐ tem failures (SOSFs). And SOSFs provide managers with a practical reflection to be able to bring to bear, on the complex, diverse, and rapidly changing problem situations they con‐ front, holistic approaches based on the variety of possible perspectives.

The chapters address the most recent developments in the theoretical and practical aspects of these important fields, which, due to their special nature, bring together in a systematic way, many disciplines of engineering, from the traditional to the most technologically ad‐ vanced. The authors of these chapters are various practitioners and theory developers in‐ volved in using the system thinking and system engineering approaches at the scale of increased complexity and advanced computational solutions to such systems. The chapters cover the areas such as failure assessment in aeronautical engineering, seismic resistance of offshore pipeline engineering, electrical engineering, critical infrastructure failure, and sys‐ tem of system theory.

The editor is grateful to all the authors and publishing process manager for their enthusias‐ tic contributions.

> **Dr. Takafumi Nakamura** Fujitsu Fsas Inc., Japan

**Section 1**

**Introduction**

**Section 1**
