ABSTRACT
Beginning with World War II during the late 1930s and continuing immediately thereafter during the early cold war years of the late 1940s and the 1950s, the military problems posed for engineering solutions became increasingly complex and often would not yield to a solution solely within the context of a single engineering discipline. It was also found that it was not possible to depend on a single engineer in any one eld mastering the complete range of knowledge, due to an expansion of the knowledge base for science, engineering, and weapon systems. As a result, it became necessary to apply the specialization paradigm narrowing the scope of the traditional engineering disciplines and adding others, like reliability. Engineers from several disciplines had to work together, as suggested in Figure 2.1b, each supported by a cast of specialists.
