System Concepts: Hierarchy, Boundary and Closed System

an object that one need not, cannot, or does not wish to give a specific name to

Anything perceivable or conceivable

an abstract object that contains two or more interacting subsystems that create whole system properties and is a subsystem of one or more suprasystems.

a system that interacts with other subsystems within a system or suprasystem and provides its own essential system properties.

Synonyms: System Element, Part, Component, Module, Constituent System

a system that contains the system-of-interest and zero or more interacting subsystems.

Synonyms: Environment, Context, Containing System

A named thing is identified by a set of stakeholders to be explored as a system. The abstract system pattern is translated into a concrete system hierarchy with named suprasystems and subsystems. The named system-of-Interest establishes a boundary between the relevant subsystems in a suprasystem and the subsystems in the system-of-interest.

A repeating pattern at different levels relating the Suprasystem, System-of-Interest and its Subsystems. The hierarchy for a system-of-interest is typically shown in a System Breakdown Structure Model.

The distinction of what is inside or outside of a System-of-Interest.

Hierarchy is a system concept that uses the assumption that all subsystems (parts, components, system elements, etc) can actually be considered as systems. This means that A system consists of 2 or more subsystems which are systems. The Suprasystem consists of two or more systems. If a system-of-interest is selected, this selection places the System-of-Interest pointing to a system, this places the suprasystem as a containing system of the System-of-interest and the subsystems to be parts of the system-of-interest. Thus, selecting any system in a hierarchy will use this model independent of the level in the hierarchy. The System Breakdown Structure is an example of this concept where any system on the model can be selected as a system of Interest and will always define a hierarchy.

See the System Breakdown Structure

See the General System Model

A boundary determines what is inside the system-of-interest and what is outside of the system-of-interest. Once the system-of-interest has been identified, the boundary can then be identified through the identification of the two sets of systems: SubSupra: Systems outside of the system-of-interest and SubSoI: Systems within the system-of-interest.

If the Suprasystem only contains the system-of-interest and there are no other systems in the SubSupra set, The suprasystem and the system-of-interest are identical. A closed system does not interact with any systems outside of the system-of-interest.