The Engineering Design of Systems

Models and Methods

Dennis M. Buede, William D. Miller

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781119028079
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Tecnologia e ingegneria
• Subtopic: Ingegneria elettronica e telecomunicazioni

New for the third edition, chapters on: Complete Exercise of the SE Process, System Science and Analytics and The Value of Systems Engineering

The book takes a model-based approach to key systems engineering design activities and introduces methods and models used in the real world. This book is divided into three major parts: (1) Introduction, Overview and Basic Knowledge, (2) Design and Integration Topics, (3) Supplemental Topics. The first part provides an introduction to the issues associated with the engineering of a system. The second part covers the critical material required to understand the major elements needed in the engineering design of any system: requirements, architectures (functional, physical, and allocated), interfaces, and qualification. The final part reviews methods for data, process, and behavior modeling, decision analysis, system science and analytics, and the value of systems engineering. Chapter 1 has been rewritten to integrate the new chapters and updates were made throughout the original chapters.

• Provides an overview of modeling, modeling methods associated with SysML, and IDEF0
• Includes a new Chapter 12 that provides a comprehensive review of the topics discussed in Chapters 6 through 11 via a simple system – an automated soda machine
• Features a new Chapter 15 that reviews General System Theory, systems science, natural systems, cybernetics, systems thinking, quantitative characterization of systems, system dynamics, constraint theory, and Fermi problems and guesstimation
• Includes a new Chapter 16 on the value of systems engineering with five primary value propositions: systems as a goal-seeking system, systems engineering as a communications interface, systems engineering to avert showstoppers, systems engineering to find and fix errors, and systems engineering as risk mitigation

The Engineering Design of Systems: Models and Methods, Third Edition is designed to be an introductory reference for professionals as well as a textbook for senior undergraduate and graduate students in systems engineering.

Part 1
Introduction, Overview, and Basic Knowledge

Chapter 1
Introduction to Systems Engineering

1.1 Introduction

A system is commonly defined to be “a collection of hardware, software, people, facilities, and procedures organized to accomplish some common objectives.” The stakeholders for the system hold these objectives. Never forget that the system being addressed by one group of engineers is the subsystem of another group and the supersystem of yet a third group. The objective of the engineers for a system is to provide a system that accomplishes the primary objectives set by the stakeholders, including those objectives associated with the creation, production, and disposal of the system. To accomplish this engineering task, the engineers must identify the system's stakeholders throughout the system's life cycle and define the objectives of all of these stakeholders. These objectives typically address the triad of cost, schedule, and performance – cheaper, faster, and better.

A major characteristic of the engineering of systems is the attention devoted to the entire life cycle of the system. This life cycle has been characterized as “birth to death,” and “lust to dust.” That is, the life cycle begins with the gleam in the eyes of the users or stakeholders, is followed by the definition of the stakeholders' needs by the systems engineers, includes developmental design and integration, goes through production and operational use, usually involves refinement, and finishes with the retirement and disposal of the system. Ignoring any part of this life cycle while engineering the system can lead to sufficiently negative consequences, including failure at the extreme. In particular, developing a system that has not adequately addressed the stakeholders' needs leads to failures such as the “highway to nowhere” near San Francisco, which was stopped by political pressure brought to bear by homeowners on the surrounding hills overlooking the bay. The view of the bay that these homeowners enjoyed and thought was an associated right of the property they owned would have been blocked by the highway. Similar commercial failures that did not consider the needs of the stakeholders in sufficient detail include the personal computers IBM PC Jr. and the Apple LISA. This is not to say that the adherence to methods and models put forth in this book or any other will guarantee success or even the absence of failure. Rather the methods and models proposed here do attend to the entire life cycle of the system and provide a process that makes sense, can be tailored to various levels of detail as dictated by the complexity of the system being addressed, and attend to all of the details that many engineers during years of practice in systems engineering have determined to be useful.

The concepts of design and integration are critical to the methods addressed in this chapter and the book. The word design is used by many professions (artists, architects, all disciplines of engineering) and is claimed by each.

The American Heritage Dictionary [Berube, 1991] defines design as follows:

de-sign (di-zin') v. - signed, - sign^.ing, - signs.—tr. 1. To conceive in the mind; invent: designed his dream vacation. 2. To form a plan for: designed a marketing strategy for the new product. 3. To have a goal or purpose; intend. 4. To plan by making a preliminary sketch, outline, or drawing. 5. To create or execute in an artistic or highly skilled manner. –intr. 1. To make or execute plans. 2. To create designs. –n. 1. A drawing or sketch. 2. The invention and dispositio...