GLOBAL MEGATRENDS

Cutting across all the following megatrends we have defined for the 2035 Systems Engineering Vision is the ever-expanding role of software-implemented capabilities for system-level behaviors as well as the monitor and control of individual components.

Global Megatrends Shape the Systems of the Future 

Global megatrends are driven (and enabled) by global socio-economic changes, coupled with technological advances. We are experiencing global increases in wealth, leading to greater stakeholder expectations for addressing the type of issues as laid out by the United Nations - that is, increased demand for improved healthcare, clean living environments, social equality, education etc. Greater wealth also feeds the advancement of technological capabilities and societal appetite for applying these technologies in a responsible, sustainable manner while transitioning away from fossil-fuel based energy.

SOME KEY ATTRIBUTES OF GLOBAL SOCIO-ECONOMIC CHANGE INFLUENCING THE NATURE OF SYSTEMS

  • Increasing electrification

  • Improved nutrition

  • Increased reliance on social communication communities

  • Increased access to the internet

  • Decreases in extreme poverty

  • Improved access to healthcare

  • Lowering of fertility rates and infant mortality

  • Increase in income levels

  • Improvement in education levels, especially for women

MEGATRENDS expected to influence systems engineering through 2035.

These global socio-economic megatrends shape the needs and expectations for systems, providing products and services across all industries and domains such as transportation, health care, space utilization, communications, energy production and distribution, education, food production, and all forms of modern infrastructure.

 

Systems Address a Wide Variety of Domains

SOCIETAL CHANGES CAN PRODUCE GREAT SOCIETAL STRESS, URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE DEMANDS, AND INCREASED SYSTEM CHALLENGES FOR AGRICULTURE, ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH, AND SUSTAINABILITY. TRUST IN INFORMATION, ALONG WITH PROTECTION OF PERSONAL DATA, CONSTITUTES A GRAND CHALLENGE FOR INFORMATION SUPPLIERS AND CONSUMERS.

GLOBAL MEGATREND 1

ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY BECOMES A HIGH PRIORITY

Society will place great importance on reuse, giving rise to Circular Economies.

Consumption of non-renewable resources resulting from economic activity will increasingly require better global management, recycling strategies, sustainable policies, local actions, and supporting systems, such as energy conversion and infrastructure for clean transportation and manufacturing.

Environmental change will result in shifts in living conditions, and impacts bio-diversity, climate, global heat transport, the availability of fresh water, and other natural resources necessary for human sustenance and well-being.

Overall environmental quality will be a priority, requiring global cooperation. The trend toward greater concern for environmental sustainability will result in several key societal and system imperatives.

Engineering for sustainability, a system characteristic, will create a new generation of engineers who routinely assess the societal impacts of engineered systems.

  • Impacts of human activity on climate will be ingrained in assessments of engineered systems and public/private policies.

    Many systems, both straightforward and novel, will arise to mitigate the deleterious impacts of climate change, such as global warming.

  • Priority will be placed on systems that are more efficient at resource utilization and responsible waste disposal. Though enterprises will continue to struggle with business and consumer pressures to increase consumption, versus environmental prerogatives to reduce waste.

  • The global fossil-fuel based energy economy will be transformed to one based on clean and renewable sources.

THE GLOBAL PUBLIC WILL TRUST AND REWARD SYSTEMS PROVIDERS AND OPERATORS THAT PRODUCE SUSTAINABLE SYSTEMS AND BEHAVE IN A SUSTAINABLE MANNER.

GLOBAL MEGATREND 2

THE INTERCONNECTED WORLD INCREASES INTERDEPENDENCE

Our World in Data

A global community facilitated by advancing communications, information, and mobility capabilities results in higher levels of political and economic interdependence. This brings about the need to share resources and to interconnect systems in global partnerships. Governments and enterprises have become globally intertwined, relying upon the effectiveness of the supporting infrastructure systems. Many systems operating today never envisioned or ignored the impacts of this interdependence. Enterprises themselves are becoming ever more complex systems, in need of interconnected engineering and sustainment.

The exponential growth of the value of global exports over the past 70 years is a key indicator of economic interdependence. This interdependence is resulting in new collaboration mechanisms for global disaster relief, public health, information and sharing of knowledge and technology… but will also require improved coordination of policies to meet economic and financial challenges while achieving balance and global equity.

“The reality can no longer be ignored that we live in an interdependent world which is bound together to a common destiny”
— Nelson Mandela

  • Today’s internet will be supplemented by a space-based internet with global scope.

  • Communications via shared global media contributes to leveling social aspirations and decreasing knowledge disparities.

  • Telepresence, teleoperation, and tele-medicine will be increasingly common, with global reach.

FOR IT-DRIVEN GLOBALIZATION TO THRIVE, TRUST OF SYSTEMS (CYBER-RESILIENCE AND PROTECTION OF PERSONAL INFORMATION), WILL HAVE TO BE STRENGTHENED AND ASSURED.

A Digital Twin is an approximation of reality which integrates many engineering models and simulations. It approaches reality iteratively as it drives ideation, production, and servicing.

GLOBAL MEGATREND 3

THE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION CHANGES PRODUCTS AND THE WAY WE WORK

Commercial and governmental enterprises are aggressively undertaking efforts to modernize processes and products by moving toward robust digital representations of enterprise information, and semantically integrating information across the enterprise and supply chains, for design, development, manufacturing, logistics and business analysis. Knowledge engineering, information representation, model curation, and data analytics will underpin the way decisions are made and collaborative work is accomplished. Value will be provided to the consumer not only via end products but increasingly by providing services. Digital transformation will provide advantages for the more agile and competitive enterprises that master and adopt these approaches.

Increased reliance on digital representations will require cyber-security diligence in order to protect data and intellectual property.

Thus, the nature of engineering, especially tools and methods, will be changing more profoundly than in prior decades. Modeling, simulation, analysis, and visualization of system designs and end-to-end solutions enabled by high fidelity digital representations will dominate the practices of all engineering disciplines. AI will be increasingly integrated into tools throughout the system life cycle.

Digital representations of systems will enable the exploration of design and margins (physical as well as performance and safety) using virtual reality and/or augmented reality, including highly immersive environments. Digital representation of products and manufacturing environments will be all-encompassing. A digital proxy, the digital twin, will be common-place in representing products throughout their life cycle. This will allow engineers to explore designs and production methods, both conceptually and physically, from a variety of viewpoints by placing themselves inside a system of interest. Specialized visualizations will assist engineers in understanding time-variant behaviors. Analysis of uncertainty and analysis of alternatives will be much faster and rigorous than ever before.

THE NEED FOR TRUST IN MODELS AND DATA WILL REQUIRE NEW VERIFICATION AND VALIDATION MODELS.

GLOBAL MEGATREND 4

INDUSTRY 4.0 AND SOCIETY 5.0 UNDERPIN CHANGE STRATEGIES

Industry is in the process of reinventing itself by adjusting to new societal and technological challenges. Global interaction and interdependencies of machines, warehouses, logistics systems, and engineering within cyber-physical systems create unbounded flexibility of self standing automated processes. The German Academy of Technology (Acatech) coined this development “Industry 4.0.” 

Industry has evolved over the past three hundred
years from primitive mechanization to mass production, then electronics-based automation, and now to cyber-physical systems, defined as systems that integrate computation, networking, and physical processes. Embedded computers and networks monitor and control the physical processes, with feedback loops where physical processes affect computations and vice versa.

Under the Industry 4.0 approach, the logic and control of production changes significantly, and form the basis for smart factories. Products are monitored, their state of production and shipping are known, and their physical or software state configurations are individually catalogued at every step of their life cycle. A record for every component of a larger system becomes transparent for customers, manufacturers and supply chains. Digital twins are at the heart of the overall system development life cycle. The digital chains of interacting tools and processes are seamless throughout the life cycle, established at every link of participating players, available to and trusted by all involved. 

Society 5.0 explicitly looks to a future of socio-cyber-physical systems. That is, a human-centered society that balances economic advancement with the resolution of social problems by a system that highly integrates cyber-space and physical space. In Society 5.0, data from sensors in physical space are accumulated in cyber-space, analyzed by artificial intelligence (AI), and results are fed back to humans in physical space in various forms.

Together these trends respond to the sustainable goals of the UN, the recommendations of the World Economic Forum, and the changing values of the world‘s population, especially of younger generations.

SOCIETY 5.0

Japan has established Society 5.0 as a national strategic policy that will shape national priorities and investments. Society 5.0 is envisioned as society’s next major transformation beyond the information age. 

“Society 5.0 will be an Imagination Society, where digital transformation combines with the creativity of diverse people to bring about “problem solving” and “value creation” that lead us to sustainable development. It is a concept that can contribute to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the United Nations.”
— Nakanishi, H., World Economic Forum Annual Meeting, 2019

SYSTEMS MUST BE TRUSTED TO ENFORCE SECURITY OF PERSONAL AND ENTERPRISE INFORMATION, AS WELL AS INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS, FOR THE ENTIRE DIGITAL THREAD.

GLOBAL MEGATREND 5

SYSTEM COMPLEXITY EXPLODES

Complexity emerges from system designs, in part because of the increased coupling which produces dependencies, vulnerabilities and risks that need to be understood and exposed for systems managers, sponsors, and public policy decision makers. Complexity is also growing due to increased demand for greater systems capability and efficiency which in turn increases use of software and autonomy - improving systems adaptability but making testing difficult and introducing cyber-threats. Complexity is growing across markets and application domains in which distributed systems interact in a highly coupled, unpredictable and ever-changing ecosystem, blurring the frontiers between industries, markets, and application domains. The potential for system failure can often be exacerbated by the complex organizations which operate these systems.

 

EXAMPLES OF INCREASING SYSTEM COMPLEXITY ARE:

  • SMART HOUSES

    Smart houses containing heating, air-conditioning, lighting, and security subsystems, controlled by smart thermostats and a spectrum of sensors, which are frequently connected to the internet and mobile phones, to optimize energy consumption, comfort, safety, and other functions.

  • MODERN AUTOMOBILES

    Modern automobiles incorporating intelligent navigation systems and multiple controllers for advanced driving assistance systems, power management, suspension management, and many more subsystems each of which is highly complex in its own right.

  • HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCES

    Household appliances such as washing machines, containing sensors and a surprisingly large amount of software, enabling their vastly growing functionality and maintainability.

  • COMPUTING, MOBILE, AND WEARABLE DEVICES

    Computing, mobile, and wearable devices which have sophisticated computation, sensor, and communications capabilities.

  • ENERGY NETWORKS

    Energy networks that are necessarily systems of systems, consisting of geographically and managerially distributed elements comprising generation, transmission and distribution, supported by intelligent sensors, energy management processors, and sophisticated logistical and cyber-security systems.

  • MEDICAL PATIENT SYSTEMS

    Medical patient systems containing implantable mechatronic devices: from pacemakers, heart valves, neurostimulators, cardioverters, and sensors; to wearable closed loop infusion control devices and exoskeleton technology for the walking-impaired.

Perrow, Charles (1984), Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies

GLOBAL MEGATREND 6

SMART SYSTEMS PROLIFERATE

  • Smart elements employing AI, automation and autonomy features, and advanced sensors for system functional behaviors as well as system self-diagnosis and repair, will be commonplace. However, the non-determinism inherent in many AI-based approaches will raise issues of system verifiability, safety, and trust.

  • Systems will increasingly be part of a larger system of systems, creating enhanced intelligence and functional value, but also challenges for smooth system evolution. Formal, ontology-based information representation will be the basis on which system elements are aware of each other’s state.

  • Smart systems will be commonplace in diverse fields, such as agriculture, urban complexes, homes, appliances, health, financial services, energy, telecommunications, private and public transportation, and national security. Intelligence will move closer to devices and away from central control.

  • Human-centered design with a focus on user experience will be a key factor for success of smart systems.

  • Rather than engineer a system for a fixed design point, systems will be engineered to contain the data and information flows that are necessary for them to continuously evolve. The system creating the system-of-interest and the system-of-interest itself will merge.

  • Consumers will increasingly be provided services tailored to their individual needs, as opposed to ownership of products which, over time, become obsolete.

AN OVERARCHING SOCIETAL CONCERN, DUE TO INCREASED USE OF AUTONOMY AND INFORMATION RELATED TO PERSONAL BEHAVIOR, IS PUBLIC TRUST OF SMART SYSTEMS TO FUNCTION RELIABLY AND SAFELY AND TO PROTECT PERSONAL INFORMATION.