A material entity consisting of multiple components that are causally integrated.

SCO cretor comment: RO defines the class “system” as a subclass of the “material entity” class. Nevertheless, a system is a fiat object, e.g. an object that is “delimited” according to the perspective of the stakeholder (Landgrebe and Smith 2022, p. 117,118). System delimitation determines the boundaries of the systems, but the stakeholder, however, does not create the system through this delimitation process (Landgrebe and Smith 2022, p. 117,118). As this class is extensively reused among ontologies within the OBO-Foundry context, we maintain its current hierarchical position. However, we recommend a revision of this class. There are two possible strategies to consider: 1) to reclassify this class as a subclass of “fiat object part” one or 2) to create a dedicated “fiat object” class that will be a subclass of “material entity” and the superclass for the “system” one (and related subclasses). We leave the discussion open with the intention of engaging with subject matter experts, planning that these modifications may be included in the next release of this resource. As the environment of a system corresponds to what has not been delimited as part of such a system, these considerations correspondingly also apply to the class “system environment” (at least regarding the system-system environment boundaries).