The Signi ficance of the Overall Design Department Thoughts of QIAN Xuesen in the New Era

YANG Jing, XUE Huifeng

China Aerospace Academy of Systems Science and Engineering, Beijing 100048

Abstract: The most distinctive feature of the new era is integration and innovation. With the rapid development of information technology and big data technology, the data era brought by arti ficial intelligence is coming. The systems engineering theory and methods summarized from engineering practice show more and more its importance and indispensability. The overall design department thoughts founded by scientist QIAN Xuesen is the result of the practice of systematic engineering science theory. The new development of the overall design department will inject intellectual support and technical support into the modernization of the national governance system and capabilities.

Key words: new era, overall design department thoughts, systems engineering

1 THE DOMESTIC AND INTERNATIONAL SITUATION IN THE NEW ERA CALLS FOR THE OVERALL DESIGN DEPARTMENT THOUGHTS

Thoughts of the overall design department develops in the new era of which the international situation changes. Since the 21st century, the newly-developing powers have been emerging in group and their participation in international governance has deepened. The trend of multi-polarization in the world and the deep integration of old and new forces in economic interests have made the international situation complicated and rapidly changing. The international community has reached the consensus of coordinated development in a pattern of “each having something of the other” and mutual competition. The world has evolved into a very complicated and changeable giant system. In the process of developing international association and dealing with international problems, we must consider problems at a higher level and have an advisory body composed of cross-departments, cross-fields, and cross-times to provide far-sighted decision-making service support.

The new achievements of the new era have caused international competition problems, which urgently need the thought of the overall design. The world has entered the G2 era. China continues to promote deepening reforms and add new energy for industrial upgrading. The total Gross Domestic Product(GPD) volume has steadily increased and international in fluence continues to rise. China’s economic volume will be bigger than that of the United States after 2030 and this change is almost irreversible. China’s national strategies in the new era, such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the Belt and Road Initiative and RMB internationalization, are all trying to change the existing global economic governance system. The reality that China and the United States are gradually taking on equivalent economic status is the core of the Sino-American con flict.Moreover, a series of issues with Sino-US disputes will continue for a long time. To win this protracted trade war requires hard practice and promotion of comprehensive and scient ific reform.

At present, extensive reform in an all-round way will be a complicated giant systematic project, which involves the integration of political, economic, cultural, social, environmental,party building and other subsystems. With the development of the economy and society, the national governance system has evolved into a complicated giant system that is intertwined and varied. Under the background of coexistence of risks and opportunities, the economy urgently needs an injection of new impetus, society urgently needs to develop harmoniously, the ecological environment urgently needs to be improved, and national security with energy security, network security and ecological security as its main contents needs to be fully guaranteed. Like the old saying, if science and technology are thriving, then the nation is thriving; if innovation is strong, then the country is strong. Scient ific and technological innovation is the key in the overall development of the country. Applying the idea of the overall design department to the operation of the central national decision-making mechanism cannot only improve the ef ficiency of its scient ific decision-making, but also inject strong and powerful software conditions into the social and economic development of the country.

2 THE IDEOLOGICAL BASIS AND THE SCIENTIFIC CONOTATION OF THE TIMES OF THE OVERALL DESIGN DEPARTMENT

QIAN Xuesen summed up the extremely successful experience of China’s overall design department in missile and satellite development on the basis of in-depth study of the social system in his later years. According to the design principles of systems engineering, he proposed the idea of establishing a national overall design department in 1991 and advocated the use of systems engineering methods to comprehensively analyze the system structure of China’s socialist construction. The idea of the overall design department is the concentrated embodiment of the theoretical method of systems engineering, which shows new features and connotations in the new era.

2.1 Ideological Basis of the Overall Design

The philosophical foundation of the overall design is dialectical unity of holism and reductionism. Organically combine reductionism with holism. The two methods are not superior to each other, but highly complementary. Reductionism emphasizes partial and microscopic and holism emphasizes the whole and macro. Reductionism excels through partial interpretation of the whole, and holism is good at passing the overall interpretation part. The overall design department not only divides the system into several sub-systems that are needed, but also dialectically un ifies the sub-system with the system and the larger system to which the system belongs. This is exactly the dialectical unity of holism and reductionism.

The theoretical basis of the overall design department is the science of thinking. QIAN Xuesen pointed out that “logical thinking is the micro method; Image thinking is the macro method; Creative thinking is the combination of macro and micro methods. Creative thinking is the source of wisdom.Logical thinking and image thinking are both means”. Based on this, QIAN Xuesen put forward the thought of combining man with machine and putting people first. As a decision-making advisory body, the overall design department needs to process not only the original information but also the knowledge, which eventually rises to the height of wisdom. In the operation process of the overall design department, it is the process of the combination of the human’s brain information processing and information technology’s information processing, that is, the combination process of image thinking and logic thinking, that is, the process of human-machine combined, human-network combined, and human-based treatment. It can be said that this kind of human-machine combined, human-network combined,and human-based thinking mode and research mode is one of the scient ific methods embodied by the overall design department and has strong creativity, that is, the method basis of the overall design department.

The technical basis of the overall design department is the comprehensive integration of human-machine and human-network. From the end of 1980s to the beginning of 1990s, QIAN Xuesen put forward “Meta-synthesis” and its practical form“Hall for Workshop of Meta-synthetic Engineering (HWME)”combined with the development of modern information technology. From the perspective of methodology and technology,it is a comprehensive integration technology of information,knowledge and wisdom which is of human-machine combined,human-network combined, and human-based. From the perspective of application and application, it is a comprehensive integration project with the overall design department as an entity. Organically combined data, knowledge, information and wisdom with computer simulation, combined scient ific theories of related disciplines with human experience and wisdom, give full play to the general advantages of the integrated system, and establish a qualitative and quantitative integrated system applied to scient ific decision-making to study the problems of complex giant systems.

2.2 Modern Scient ific Connotation of the Overall Design Department

Since the 20th century, the concept of the overall design department in project engineering is “the general team of engineers with global responsibilities.” QIAN Xuesen de fined the overall design department as “composed of technical personnel who are familiar with various aspects of the system, led by experts with broad knowledge, based on a scientific method of systems engineering, and is an essential technical unit in the development of the entire system” inThe Organization and Management Technology: Systems Engineering.

Based on previous scientific theories and practical experiences, the scientific connotation of the overall design department in the new era can be de fined as: smart complex with the function of an overall staff composed of experts who are familiar with various fields and disciplines in various aspects of the national operation system, decision-making levels at all levels,and stakeholders, and based on the principles of “Ten Rules” in systems engineering and democratic centralism; Taking national strategy, top-level design, major policies and social governance programs as research objects, taking service and in fluencing major decisions as research objectives, and integrating the five major functions of system design, un ified leadership, coordination and innovation, consulting services and decision support as main functions; Using Meta-synthesis, human-machine and humannetwork integration, multi-element data fusion, internet + technology, etc.. Aiming at upgrading the system from unsatisfactory state to satisfactory state; Using the method of comprehensive integration from qualitative to quantitative and leap-forward comprehensive promotion from prototype to model. An entity that provides decision-making advisory services to socialist politics, economy, culture, society, ecology, party building, and people’s own construction and reform through the processes of top-down un ified leadership, bottom-up hierarchical selection scheme, classification integration, simulation practice, circular iteration, and centralized decision-making.

Figure1 The process diaguam of Meta-synthesis

3 THE THOUGHT OF OVERRALL DESIGN DEPARTMENT HELPS NATIONAL GOVERNANCE TO A NEW HEIGHT

The core thought of QIAN Xuesen’s overall design department is collaborative innovation across levels, regions, systems,departments, industries, and fields. It is theoretical integration,technological integration, business integration, and data integration, thus comprehensively upgrading the research system from the reality level to the target level, that is, the intergenerational promotion of the system. At present, the task of promoting the modernization of the country’s governance system and governance capability is arduous. There is urgency to develop thoughts and technological innovations. The overall design department is an entity that provides decision-making and consulting services for the country’s political, economic, military,cultural, social and ecological construction. It can be said that the overall design department plays an important role in designing,consulting, and serving major national security decision-making issues. The overall design department can provide software support for national security and be able to provide scientific methodological guidance to the National Security Commission of the Communist Party of China, the supreme national security policy-making body.

Figure2 The process diaguam of heirarchical selection scheme

3.1 The Overall Design Department Provides Methodological Support to the National Functional Organizations

Sun Tzu said: “War is a top priority in a nation, which is related to the life and death of the civil and military, and the survival of the country. It must need to be observed, analyzed and researched carefully.” The development of national security focuses on advanced national defense technology in hardware and strategic decision-making in software. Whether the strategic guidance of national development is correct or not is related to the rise and fall of the country and the nation. The correct strategic guidance cannot be separated from comprehensive, scient ific and timely strategic foresight and preset. China’s national security development in the new era calls on high-end strategic consulting agencies to provide first-class services. The application of the overall design department thought extracted from successful space practice to the field of social governance is also advanced and applicable. The overall design department, as a manifestation of the high-end service organization of decisionmaking consultation, has the important function of a think tank.It will also be able to provide decision-making services for major national security incidents and software support for the national governance system. This kind of assistance also comes from the report on the provision of consulting services, and also from the guidance of scient ific theories and methods.

3.2 Overall Design Support Organization for Developing the National Governance System

At present, China is in a transitional period especially at the beginning of the 13th Five-Year Plan. It is at a critical stage of deepening reform. The public needs are diversified and the interest pattern is complicated. The smooth development and completion of China’s comprehensive deepening reform must break through the barriers formed by departmental interests,regional interests and vested interest groups. Moreover, the practice of deepening reform in an all-round way often involves many government departments. For example, the education issues. On the surface, it seems to be the work of institutions such as the ministry of education, but in fact it also involves the assistance and cooperation of other functional departments, and not one government department can solve it independently.Therefore, it is important to set up and integrate the leading organization with the overall design function to integrate the resources of the functional departments and allocate resources uniformly from the top so as to break through the fetters of various interests. In the new era, the country has carried out scientific research, top-level design and general layout on the governance system and structure, and has set up a number of general institutions in different fields and at different levels according to the spec ific situation, which has shown initial results.Practice has proved that in the systematic engineering practice of deepening the reform in an all-round way, the general design support mechanism is an important carrier to enhance the general strength of the country, providing not only the support of the entity mechanism, but also the most scient ific method and technical support.

3.3 The Law Provides a Guarantee for the Ef ficient Operation of the National Governance System

To solve the key problems of national governance, top-level design and strategic layout are needed, and there are also some safeguards in terms of academic laws. The national governance system follows the general principles and guarantee rules for the operation of system engineering. System engineering is not a process of analysis, demonstration, design and test by a single discipline, single force, and single school. It has the general principle of internal operation and the guarantee principle.The social system should follow “Ten Rules”. First is the global view of grasping the problem as a whole and seeking the best of the whole. Second is the optimal view of clear objectives,coordination and control. Third is the operational view of good at observing and exploring practice laws. Fourth is the structural view of firm structural reform and unswerving promotion. Fifth is the dynamic view of both internal and external forces. Sixth is the procedural view of strengthening confidence, building consensus and implementing. Seventh is the space-time view of breaking through the limitation of time and space and optimizing the allocation of resources. Eighth is the environmental view of thinking about crises and striving for opportunities. Ninth is the model view of grasping the principle, respecting the procedure and paying attention to the effect. Tenth is the decision-making view of democratic and scientific. The “Ten Rules” is a logical system. In the process of building and operating the national governance system, it is necessary to synchronize administration, design, push forward, and promote, so as to form benign interaction and realize the continuous leap of the national governance capability.

Under the background of new era, new concept, new normal and new economy, the country is in a world-oriented era of complicated giant system. In this special era, politics, economy,culture, society and environment are intertwined and become a complex system within the country. QIAN Xuesen, the originator of China’s systems engineering, the father of the “atomic and hydrogen bombs and satellite”, creatively summed up the systems engineering theory and method of “Meta-synthesis” after tens of years of national defense cutting-edge technology practice, and extended it to the practice of social system engineering. Among them, the thinking and method of the overall design department can be said to be the intellectual crystallization of his life’s energy. Deepening the reform in an all-round way is to upgrade on the basis of the previous reform and opening-up. It also needs the latest theoretical support of system engineering.It is to make full use of the “Meta-synthesis” to optimize the national operating system and to innovate the theoretical method of system engineering to realize a general “leap” of the national operating system. The overall design department is the organization and implementation form of “comprehensive promotion”of the systems engineering innovation theory, and is the concentrated embodiment of the scient ific methodology of systems engineering. Applying the idea of the overall design department to the top-level design of various countries at present is what the times need and what the reality expects. It will certainly inject strong momentum into the modernization of the country’s governance system and capabilities.