This book is a tribute to Prof. Until a few days before he died in 2005, he was working on the English translation of his successful book Analyse van Organisatie-problemen. The writers of this book are convinced of the value of his approach and decided to finish his work. The chapters of the Dutch book that had already been translated (by A.M.P.

The pace of development in knowledge and know-how in the fields of organisational sciences, logistics and information technology is rapid. However, the gap between the researcher in these areas and the practicing manager is growing. The Delft Systems Approach sets out to close the gap between theory and practice, and to achieve the following goals:

• To improve the conception of a design in order to obtain a better match between expected and real operation of a (future) industrial system;
• To integrate the structural and behavioural concepts for a system to be designed;
• To support the communication between different specialists involved in the same processes and projects;
• To guide managers in applying this knowledge to the problems with which they are confronted in practice; and,
• To communicate knowledge and understanding of that part of systems theory which will enable managers to further improve their performance and/or to reduce their workload.

The Delft Systems Approach is divided into three parts. The first part principally describes a fundamental approach for the analysis of industrial systems, which emphasises a concept that can be used by all disciplines involved and makes a logical systematic combination of quantitative and qualitative modelling. The second part is concerned with the use of these models in the design of (future) systems. The final part contains three comprehensive cases from the authors’ own practical experiences. All theoretical concepts are directly illustrated with a practical example.

This book is a tribute to Prof. Jan in ‘t Veld, who is the real founder of the Delft Systems Approach. Until a few days before he died in 2005, he was working on the English translation of his successful book Analyse van Organisatie-problemen. The eighth edition of the book appeared in the Netherlands in 2002; it represents 50 years of experience, discussion and application of a systems approach that was gradually developed and sharply defined by him. About 85,000 copies of the book had been sold by then. Unfortunately he was not able to finish the translation. The writers of this book are convinced of the value of his approach and decided to finish his work. The chapters of the Dutch book that had already been translated (by A.M.P. O’Brien) are included here with only minor changes made to them (Chapts. 2, 3, 4, 7, 8 and 9). However, we extended the theory with a conceptual view of behaviour modelling, a view that was approved by in ‘t Veld himself. Besides this, in ‘t Veld started his work from a purely managerial viewpoint.