Transdisciplinary Engineering Systems

This chapter focuses on transdisciplinary processes in the engineering domain. It adopts a systems approach for characterizing and describing transdisciplinary engineering research processes. The chapter identifies challenges that need to be overcome. It states that a system view will help to understand the complexity of transdisciplinary processes and to anticipate the challenges that need attention. Transdisciplinary systems themselves consist of subsystems, which may each be transdisciplinary also. These subsystems consist of different processes, which need different people and knowledge for their execution. Implementing the Industry 4.0 concept in a company clearly requires a transdisciplinary engineering research approach. Changing the business is not only a technical task but involves the whole business as well as sponsors, legislators, and financers. The people in the company as well as existing and potential markets play an important role too. The chapter describes two examples of such multilayered transdisciplinary systems to illustrate the concept.