System-of-systems innovation: Proactive methods for conception and strategies for implementation

The growing complexity in the technological products and systems that we design, manage and operate may limit the future potential for component and architecture innovation. In the meantime, systems-of-systems are emerging. System-of-systems innovation may bypass the complexity within an existing system, and synthesize it with other systems and technologies to improve their utilities or derive novel functionalities from the new whole. Despite the increasing attention to systems-of-systems as ex post phenomena, the proactive pursuits for system-of-systems innovation opportunities remain unguided. In this article, we first elucidate the theoretical foundations, including expansionism, synthesis and complementarity, of system-of-systems innovations with various examples. We propose a methodology of using a technology map to aid in the search for technologies and the conception of new system-of-systems concepts. Further, we also discuss and prescribe a few actionable approaches and strategies to conquer the challenges in implementing new system of systems concepts and capture the potential values created from system-of-systems innovations. © 2017 IISE, INCOSE