Flexibility in Engineering Design (Engineering Systems)

Neufville allows to lector understand every concepts relate to flexibility and real options in projects. I recommend this book from theoretical and practice perspectives.

This is a very impressive book by all standards including writing style and content. Duly recognizing that the world’s processes are inherently probabilistic and thus outcomes never occur with full certitude, the authors present a lucid and compelling case for the need to incorporate flexibility in decision-making. Thus, in their book, they present a detailed description of techniques and tools that identify, evaluate, or implement flexibility. Overall, the authors have provided, through this book, a clear roadmap to incorporate flexibility at any of the key phases of engineering system development – planning, design, construction, and operations. It is of little surprise, therefore, that this book has quickly earned the enviable reputation as being one of the few engineering classics that are consulted by engineers, systems managers, financial analysts, capital planners, and investors to help develop effective and robust decisions for systems not only in engineering but other disciplines as well. I found the book to be immensely useful in my teaching and practice as an engineering professor and consultant, and I vouch that it will be very helpful to all engineering practitioners, researchers, and academics. Definitely a must for every shelf … and for every i-pad!

Since the end of the Cold War the US military has struggled to meet the challenges of an ever changing national security environment while experiencing the devastating consequences of bad forecasts. For today's defense planners and acquisitions professionals there is a growing understanding for the need to design greater flexibility within the force structure and "in" major acquisitions programs. In this book, de Neufville and Scholtes provide a practical approach for thinking about flexibility and systematically demonstrate how these ideas can be applied to large projects. The revolutionary ideas presented in this book could greatly enhance the way we design, develop, acquire, and deploy the military systems of today and the future.

De Neufville and Scholtes have written a very useful book that is already being widely cited and having considerable influence. It is part manifesto and part practical guide, and does a great job at both. The 21st century will be the most dynamic and chaotic in human history. Anyone who thinks we can effectively forecast without large error possibilities is kidding themselves. This book is about how to respond to that challenge at the design stage. I teach from and learn from this book, for applications to large-scale real estate development and urbanization projects (such as what is depicted on the cover of the book!), and I highly recommend it as such.

Excellent book for systems design, uncertainty and be introduced to the concept of flexibility and real options

Facility design concepts need flexibility built in in order to adapt the production facility to changing product composition.The work of MIT Engineering System Division should be widely studied by the OIl & Gas industry.