Understanding the complex nature of engineering technology selection: A new methodology based on systems thinking

This paper aims to apply systems thinking to address the complexity in engineering technology selection problems. Although previous researches have been conducted in this area, few made attempts to emphasize the importance of the connected nature of engineering technology selection problems and thus there is a need to bridge such a gap. In this paper, we symbolize conventional technology selection approaches as Basic Decision Equations (BDE) and introduce a connectivity matrix and processing methods so as to arrive at simple and comprehensive views of the nature of engineering technology selection problem. Discussions are made upon a case study using this proposed method.