In the minds of many writers systems engineering is synonomous with component selection and interface design; that is, the systems engineer does not … - A. Wayne Wymore

All that can be done pedagogically is to show the student how some phenomena have been modeled, let him model some phenomena under supervision, and then hope he will be successful on his own—or know enough to secure assistance.

During this period I was able to carry out only one project of real interest to me. Pure Oil was a fully integrated oil company in the sense that they engaged in exploration for oil, construction of oil wells, production of crude oil, transportation to refineries, distribution of refinery products to company owned storage facilities and to gas stations. We developed a linear programming model of the whole network hoping to discover the optimum allocation to and from connected nodes in order to meet required deliveries at minimum cost. Then we collected all the data needed by our model and ran the model. The computations took several days and the results were disappointing: The optimum allocations were not significantly different from their current practices. Is it possible that we had discovered a system of human beings in which everyone knew the payoff functions and constraints, and, over time, had evolved behavior patterns that enabled them to achieve near optimum performance? Or was it possible that our model was not detailed enough as it was based so closely on current practice that no new behavior could emerge? Or was our data incorrect? This was disappointing but great experience.

[The process of system design is]... consisting of the development of a sequence of mathematical models of systems, each one more detailed than the last.