Electric vehicle system-of-systems showing interconnected global supply chain elements including mining, manufacturing, and charging infrastructure. Custom AI-generated illustration created by SE-Scholar.
The Systems Engineering Stakeholder Challenge in Producing Clean Cars
The hillside did not fail all at once.
First came the rain, then the slow softening of the soil, and finally the collapse. At the Rubaya mining site in eastern Congo, hundreds of miners were working underground when the earth above them gave way, burying tunnels carved by hand in search of coltan and cobalt. [1]
Tumaini Munguiko was among those who made it out.
Many others did not. In the days that followed, he helped bury his friends and joined families searching for loved ones, all while coming to terms with the fact that he had survived when others had not. “Seeing our peers die is very painful,” he said. “But despite the pain, we are forced to return to the mines to survive.” [2]
The minerals extracted from sites like Rubaya are part of a global supply chain that enables electric vehicles, often described as a cornerstone of clean energy. [3] Yet when we design electric vehicles, the focus is typically on cleaner transportation and reduced emissions, not on the conditions faced by miners on the other side of the world.
Miners work at the D4 Gakombe coltan mining quarry in Rubaya, Congo, May 9, 2025. (AP PhotoMoses Sawasawa, File)
The Illusion of a Complete System
When we look at an electric vehicle as a system, we see a clean, efficient product. We might consider the driver, the manufacturer, and perhaps the charging infrastructure. On the surface, it feels like a well-understood system.
But this view is incomplete.
Hidden behind that system are mining operations extracting lithium, cobalt, and nickel, processing facilities, global logistics networks, and manufacturing systems distributed across multiple countries. [4] It also includes local communities and ecosystems affected by those operations. These stakeholders are not peripheral. They are affected by the system’s development, operation, and disposal. Many of these stakeholders are rarely considered in early system definition.
Why Stakeholders Get Missed
Stakeholder identification often suffers from three common failure modes:
Boundary bias – Teams define the system too narrowly, excluding external but impacted stakeholders
Proximity bias – Focus is placed on stakeholders closest to the system’s operation
Visibility bias – Only stakeholders that are easy to see or interact with are considered
These biases lead to an incomplete understanding of the system context.
The Cost of Incomplete Stakeholder Identification
Missing stakeholders is not a theoretical issue. It can have real consequences.
Unidentified stakeholders can introduce:
Unanticipated requirements
Regulatory challenges
Ethical concerns
Environmental impacts
Supply chain disruptions
In systems engineering terms, these often emerge as late-stage changes, cost growth, or performance shortfalls.
In more severe cases, they manifest as loss of trust, reputational damage, or system failure.
Defining Stakeholders in Practice
When I teach the Stakeholder Needs and Requirements Definition process, I ask my students a simple question:
“If you develop a system that sits out in the field and the system’s runoff goes into a nearby stream and a cow in the next county drinks from that stream and dies, is the cow, or the owner of that cow, a stakeholder?”
The question may sound lighthearted, but it highlights a serious issue: who exactly are the stakeholders of the system we are building?
The INCOSE Systems Engineering Handbook is explicit on this point. Stakeholders include any individual, group, or organization that can affect or be affected by the system across its life cycle. [5] In practice, stakeholder identification often starts with those closest to the system: operators, customers, maintainers, and regulators. These are visible, accessible, and easier to prioritize. What is more difficult is identifying stakeholders outside the immediate system boundary.
If stakeholder identification is limited to those who directly interact with the finished product, the resulting requirements will reflect only part of the system’s impact. The system may meet its mission parameters while still introducing risks beyond the actual mission.
A Systems Thinking Approach to Expanding the System Boundary
My classroom question is not to suggest that every stakeholder can be fully accounted for. It is to reinforce a discipline: make a deliberate effort to identify who might be affected, even when they are not visible.
In complex, globally distributed systems, stakeholders are often separated by geography and layers of abstraction. They may never use the system, and the design team may never meet them. Yet the system still affects them.
I encourage my students to use systems thinking to expand the system boundary during stakeholder analysis, so that they can surface hidden assumptions, identify risks earlier, and make more informed trade-offs.
Instead of asking only “Who uses the system?”, we should also ask:
Who is affected indirectly?
Who supplies inputs to the system?
Who depends on its outputs?
Who is impacted over time—during maintenance, disposal, or failure?
What environmental or societal systems interact with this system?
These questions shift the analysis from a narrow product view to a broader system-of-systems perspective.
The goal is not perfection. It is awareness.
Practical Takeaway
The story at Rubaya needs to remind us that modern engineered systems are deeply interconnected and that their impacts rarely remain confined to where they are designed or used. For practicing systems engineers, the takeaway is straightforward:
Consider impacts upstream, downstream, and outside the immediate operational context.
Challenge the initial system boundary when needed.
Find the stakeholders that are affected, even if they never operate, purchase, or directly interact with the system.
Effective systems engineering begins with a complete and accurate understanding of stakeholders. Missing a stakeholder early often results in rework, cost growth, or system failure later in the lifecycle.
The systems we build are only as good as the perspective we bring to them.
If we want better outcomes, we need to see the full system, not just the parts that are easy to see.
Optional Reader Resource
References
Kabumba, Justin, et al. "Mine Collapses in Eastern Congo, Leaving at Least 200 Dead." AP News, 31 Jan. 2026, apnews.com/article/congo-m23-mine-collapse-rubaya-1d3c09b2facd0b5c5574c638069de00d.
Alonga, Ruth, et al. "Families Mourn Those Killed in a Congo Mine Landslide as Some Survivors Prepare to Return." AP News, 3 Feb. 2026, apnews.com/article/congo-mine-collapse-rubaya-goma-be74ff05187a0a43aceb36ecd2f502ec.
International Energy Agency (IEA). “The Role of Critical Minerals in Clean Energy Transitions.” IEA, 2021. https://www.iea.org/reports/the-role-of-critical-minerals-in-clean-energy-transitions
Sigal, Lucila. "Argentine Court in Key Lithium Region Halts New Permits Over Environmental Concerns." Reuters, 15 Mar. 2024, www.reuters.com/world/americas/argentine-court-key-lithium-region-halts-new-permits-over-environmental-concerns-2024-03-14/.
International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE). Systems Engineering Handbook: A Guide for System Life Cycle Processes and Activities. Version 5.0, Wiley, 2023. https://www.incose.org/products-and-publications/se-handbook
