"The origins of the systems approach, Churchman’s personal journey"

“A system may actually exist as a natural aggregation of component parts found in Nature, or it may be a man-contrived aggregation – a way of looking at a problem which results from a deliberate decision to assume that a set of elements are related and constitute such a thing called ‘a system.”

“An objective of O.R. as it emerged from this evolution of industrial organization, is to provide managers of the organizations with a scientific basis for solving problems involving the interaction of the components of the organization in the best interest of the organization as a whole. A decision which is best for the organization as a whole is called optimum decision.”

“A systems approach begins when first you see the world through the eyes of another.”

“The problem of systems improvement is the problem of the 'ethics of the whole system'.”

“The management of a system has to deal with the generation of the plans for the system, i.e., consideration of all of the things we have discussed, the overall goals, the environment, the utilization of resources and the components. The management sets the component goals, allocates the resources, and controls the system performance.”

“We are always obliged to think about the larger system. If we fail to do this, then our thinking becomes fallacious.”