Systems Engineering

12 Key excerpts on "Systems Engineering"

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  Topics in Systems

  • Howard Eisner(Author)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Mercury Learning and Information

    (Publisher)

  Systems Engineering is a discipline that concentrates on the design and application of the whole (system) as distinct from the parts. It involves looking at a problem in its entirety, taking into account all the facets and all the variables and relating the social to the technical aspect.

  INCOSE goes on to present this author’s definition [INCOSE11, Eisner08], namely:

  Systems Engineering is an iterative process of top-down synthesis, development, and operation of a real-world system that satisfies, in a near optimal manner, the full range of requirements for the system.

  NASA

  The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has been a very positive force in the building of large, complex systems. Its definition takes the following forms [NASA07]:

  Systems Engineering is a methodical, disciplined approach for the design, realization, technical management, operations, and retirement of a system.

  Systems Engineering is the art and science of developing an operable system capable of meeting requirements within often opposed constraints. Systems Engineering is a holistic, integrated discipline, wherein the contributions of [various kinds of engineers] are evaluated and balanced, one against another, to produce a coherent whole that is not dominated by the perspective of a single discipline.

  DoD

  A U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) definition [Eisner08, DoD12] that is appropriate for our purposes here is that Systems Engineering:

  Involves design and management of a total system which includes hardware and software, as well as other system life-cycle elements. The Systems Engineering process is a structured, disciplined, and documented technical effort through which systems products and processes are simultaneously denned, developed, and integrated. Systems Engineering is most effectively implemented as part of an overall integrated product and process development effort using multidisciplinary teamwork.

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  System Engineering Management

  • Benjamin S. Blanchard, John E. Blyler(Authors)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  Systems Engineering is an interdisciplinary approach and means to enable the realization of successful systems. It focuses on defining customer needs and required functionality early in the development cycle, documenting requirements, and then proceeding with design synthesis and system validation while considering the complete problem. Systems Engineering considers both the business and technical needs of all customers with the goal of providing a quality product that meets the user needs.

  The Department of Defense (DOD) defines system engineering as follows:

  An approach to translate approved operational needs and requirements into operationally suitable blocks of systems. The approach shall consist of a top-down, iterative process of requirements analysis, functional analysis and allocation, design synthesis and verification, and system analysis and control. Systems Engineering shall permeate design, manufacturing, test and evaluation, and support of the product. Systems Engineering principles shall influence the balance between performance, risk, cost, and schedule.

  Wikipedia defines Systems Engineering as:13

  An interdisciplinary field of engineering that focuses on how to design and manage complex systems over their life cycles.—Systems Engineering ensures that all likely aspects of a project or system are considered, and integrated into a whole.

  More specifically:

  The Systems Engineering process shall:14

  1. Transform approved operational needs and requirements into an integrated system design solution through concurrent consideration of all life-cycle needs (i.e., development, manufacturing, test and evaluation, deployment, operations, support, training, and disposal), and
  2. Ensure the interoperability and integration of all operational, functional, and physical interfaces. Ensure that system definition and design reflect the requirements for all system elements to include hardware, software, facilities, people, and data, and

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  Engineering Information Security

  The Application of Systems Engineering Concepts to Achieve Information Assurance

  • Stuart Jacobs(Author)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Wiley-IEEE Press

    (Publisher)

  2 Systems Engineering

  2.1 So What is Systems Engineering?

  Systems Engineering is a methodical approach to the specification, design, creation, and operation of a function. In simple terms, Systems Engineering consists of:

  • identification and quantification of system goals and objectives;
  • development of functional and performance requirement statements that capture those capabilities necessary to fulfill the identified goals and objectives;
  • creation of alternative system design concepts that comply with the functional and performance requirements;
  • performance, cost–benefit, and trade-off analyses for each alternative design;
  • selection, implementation, and deployment of the chosen design;
  • verification that the design is properly built, integrated, deployed, operated/managed; and
  • post-deployment assessment of how well the system meets (or met) the goals.

  Let us start with a couple of general definitions of Systems Engineering:

  The concept from the engineering standpoint is the evolution of the engineering scientist, i.e., the scientific generalist who maintains a broad outlook. The method is that of the team approach. On large-scale system problems, teams of scientists and engineers, generalists as well as specialists, exert their joint efforts to find a solution and physically realize it…. The technique has been variously called the systems approach or the team development method.1

  and

  The Systems Engineering method recognizes each system as an integrated whole even though composed of diverse, specialized structures and sub-functions. It further recognizes that any system has a number of objectives and that the balance between to optimize the overall system functions according to the weighted objectives and to achieve maximum compatibility of its parts.2

  Systems Engineering focuses on defining customer needs and required functionality early in the development cycle and then refining and documenting requirements that represent those needs. This approach continues into design synthesis, development, system validation, deployment, operation, and retirement while considering the complete problem (system life cycle).

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  Handbook of Dynamic System Modeling

  • Paul A. Fishwick(Author)
  • 2007(Publication Date)
  • Chapman and Hall/CRC

    (Publisher)

  According to MIL-STD-499B, Systems Engineering is “an interdisciplinary approach to evolve and verify an integrated and life-cycle balanced set of system product and process solutions that satisfy the customers needs. Systems Engineering: encompasses the scientific and engineering efforts related to the development, manufacturing, verification, deployment, operations, support, and disposal of system products and processes; develops needed user training equip-ment, procedures, and data; establishes and maintains configuration management of the system; and develops work breakdown structures and statements of work, and provides information for management decision making.” This definition attempts to illustrate and combine structural, functional, and purposeful views of Systems Engineering. There are many subsequent and reasonably comparable definitions. We have illustrated three hierarchical levels for Systems Engineering in Figure 4.1. We now expand on this to indicate some of the ingredients at each of these levels. The functional definition, or lowest level, of Systems Engineering says that we will be concerned with the various tools and techniques and methods that enable us to design systems. Often, these will be systems science and operations research tools that enable the formal analysis of systems, including modeling. They can also include specific system design tools and components. With respect to information technology and software engineering applications, Systems Engineering 4 -7 these would certainly include a variety of computer science and programming tools or methods. It should be, strictly speaking, more appropriate to refer to these as product-level methods. Then we could also refer to process methods and systems management methods. When the term “method(s)” is used alone and without a modifier, what is generally being referred to are product-level methods.

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  INCOSE Systems Engineering Handbook

  • (Author)
  • 2023(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  1 Systems Engineering INTRODUCTION

  1.1 WHAT IS Systems Engineering?

  Systems Engineering (SE)

  Our world and the systems we engineer continue to become more complex and interrelated. SE is an integrative approach to help teams collaborate to understand and manage systems and their complexity and deliver successful systems. The SE perspective is based on systems thinking—a perspective that sharpens our awareness of wholes and how the parts within those wholes interrelate (incose.org , About Systems Engineering). SE aims to ensure the pieces work together to achieve the objectives of the whole. SE practitioners work within a project team and take a holistic, balanced, life cycle approach to support the successful completion of system projects (INCOSE Vision 2035, 2022). SE has the responsibility to realize systems that are fit for purpose

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  Computer Systems Engineering Management

  • Robert S. Alford(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • CRC Press

    (Publisher)

  4Systems Engineering 4.1   The Systems Engineer 4.2   Product Planning 4.3   Developing the System Architecture 4.4   Project Management 4.5   Build vs. Buy Decisions 4.6   Major Component Selection 4.7   Prototype Systems 4.8   System Integration and Test 4.9   Summary Further Reading

  Systems Engineering is the process of selecting and synthesizing the application of the appropriate scientific and technological knowledge in order to translate system requirements. Wilton P. ChaseManagement of System Engineering

  During the early days of computer systems it was very common for an engineering organization to be built strictly around hardware/software lines. Typically there would be a software organization that was responsible for developing the code, and a hardware organization that was responsible for everything else. To this day, some organizations continue to be structured around software/hardware lines. For engineering organizations responsible for systems development, where the system contains both hardware and software, this simple division of disciplines has proven to be inadequate. The difficulty is that the hardware people look after the hardware, and the software people look after the software, but the product is a system, and what is needed is someone to look after the system as a whole.

  Systems engineers have been around for many years in other areas of technology, but the use of systems engineers and the discipline of system engineering in computer system development is fairly recent. In this chapter we will examine the role of Systems Engineering in such an environment. This will be defined in fairly broad terms.

  It has been my experience that good systems engineers can, and should play a very broad role in computer systems development. It has also been my experience that good

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  System of Systems Modeling and Analysis

  • Daniel A. DeLaurentis, Kushal Moolchandani, Cesare Guariniello(Authors)
  • 2022(Publication Date)
  • CRC Press

    (Publisher)

  2 What Is System of Systems Engineering?

  2.1 OVERVIEW OF Systems Engineering

  We defined a system as a collection of elements which provides capabilities that no single element can provide alone. The additional capabilities, beyond that of individual elements, are the result of interactions among those elements. We intentionally exploit this quality of systems, that of providing greater capabilities than those that their elements provide in isolation, by bringing together a set of elements and designing their interactions to achieve desired capabilities. However, as systems increase in complexity, we need to assemble larger numbers of elements, account for more complex and interaction patterns and policies, and try to drive the system towards behaviors which are generally non-linear and become increasingly more difficult to predict. The increase in system complexity, therefore, also increases the value of using principles and patterns of systems thinking for design and engineering of systems. Application of systems thinking provides us with a structured approach for designing and building better systems to fulfill our needs; this is referred to as Systems Engineering (SE):

  1. “[Systems Engineering is] an interdisciplinary approach and means to enable the realization of successful systems.” [167 ]
  2. “Systems Engineering is a process employed in the evolution of systems from the point of when a need is identified through production and/or construction and ultimate deployment of that system for consumer use.”[22 ]
  3. “Systems Engineering is a robust approach to the design, creation, and operation of systems.” [97 ]

  An SE approach helps satisfy the needs of not just the end users, but those of all stakeholders including the organization building those systems, the operators, and even the regulators. Frequently, different stakeholders have differing expectations of the system. For example, from the customer's viewpoint, the purpose of SE is to find the best solution to their problem, while from the organization's viewpoint the purpose is to manage the risk involved during the process of building systems [33 ]. Meeting different stakeholders’ needs involves ensuring that the organizational, cost, and technical aspects are balanced against each other, even when such needs are conflicting with one another [97

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  Systems Engineering for Projects

  Achieving Positive Outcomes in a Complex World

  • Lory Mitchell Wingate(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Auerbach Publications

    (Publisher)

  This separation was driven by the move to digital technology from mechanical and analog electronics. With smaller, more cost-effective components, products could be designed, produced, and made available to a wide population at reasonable costs. This shift in focus brought about the processes that would make up the discipline of Systems Engineering. In fact, the words “Systems Engineering” were first used in the 1940s by Bell Telephone Laboratories, where primary activities of systems engineers—optimization modeling, queuing theory, and probability theory—were being used to solve problems associated with broad military systems during World War II. 1 The RAND Corporation had also been developing analogous processes associated with systems analysis that would also tie directly into the Systems Engineering discipline. 2 As the digital revolution drove incredible growth in industry, complicated and complex systems were developed, produced, and brought to market. Methods were created to carefully capture the stakeholders’ requirements and to ensure that the incorporation of all disciplines (including software development) were put into place and incorporated into the processes, so that the final product or service had the highest probability of meeting the stakeholders’ expectations. The United States Department of Defense and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration were both early adopters of this systematic, integrated approach to the product life cycle. The complexity of the systems that they were developing for both war fighting and space exploration required a methodical approach that would provide the rigor needed throughout the design, development, production, and operations of these highly integrated systems so that they could be operated safely, securely, and with the intended results. By the later part of the century, the need for an integrated systems approach was clear. Systems built on heavy software–hardware interactions and interfaces had emerged

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  Systems Engineering

  A 21st Century Systems Methodology

  • Derek K. Hitchins(Author)
  • 2008(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  Despite this, at the time of writing, project management has become so ingrained in western business culture that many systems practitioners are unaware of any alternative to project-based working. Systems Engineering, then, is often undertaken in association with a project or program. Perhaps because of the switch away from functional management and towards project management, the constitution of a Systems Engineering project has changed, too. Industry, for example, may now expect to be told by customers what they require — often in detail as a set of so-called requirements, and often in respect, not of the whole solution system, but of only a part. In systems methodological terms, industry may be expected to undertake SM7: Create and Prove Solution System. If that were the sum total, then Systems Engineering would have been truly emasculated. However, some customers — not all — undertake a full systems methodological process, perhaps 364 Systems Engineering: A 21ST CENTURY SYSTEMS METHODOLOGY in-house, but often using various parts of the appropriate industry to conduct different phases of the overall systems methodology. So, customers may commission concept studies, feasibility studies, project definition studies, operational analysis studies, prototypes, and so on — effectively following a systems methodology, albeit in a somewhat piecemeal fashion. The seemingly piecemeal approach is, perhaps, an indication of caution or uncertainty — an unwillingness to commit funds to major constructions until certain that their designs will work be affordable and sustainable. Unfortunately, the approach can increase overall costs greatly, as funds are bid for and released for each phase in turn, spinning out and delaying the onset of any actual creation. Moreover, the delays militate against the project outturn being effective, since the problem/threat/opportunity that it was intended to address may have changed or evolved out of all recognition.

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  Healthcare Technology Management - A Systematic Approach

  • Francis Hegarty, John Amoore, Paul Blackett, Justin McCarthy, Richard Scott(Authors)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • CRC Press

    (Publisher)

  This implies that, as noted earlier, we include metrics and measurements in our systems approach. Chapter 1 has described the Value measure, the benefit delivered relative to the cost of achieving it. Introductory thoughts on measurements will be provided in this chapter, whilst Chapters 5 and 6 will expand on healthcare technology management (HTM) performance measures. • Third, the clinical engineer, with their methodical working, instinctive tendency to measure and focus on objectives can apply this structured approach beyond the confines of HTM to the wider healthcare system. 2.2 INTRODUCTION TO Systems Engineering Let’s start by restating the INCOSE definition of Systems Engineering as ‘an engineering discipline whose responsibility is creating and executing an interdisciplinary process to ensure that the customer and stakeholder’s needs are satisfied in a high quality, trustworthy, cost efficient and schedule compliant manner throughout a system’s entire life cycle’ (INCOSE 2016). Viewing objects, organizations and operating processes from a Systems Engineering approach has many advantages. It offers a structured method of analyzing each in detail, of examining the interactions between their constituent elements, whilst maintaining focused on the system’s overall aim, its purpose. The approach helps to ensure full understanding of each element’s characteristics, strengths and weaknesses, and how the elements interact. It recognizes that, important as each element is, it is the working together of the elements, their collective interactions, that achieves the system’s objective. The Systems Engineering approach, when applied to some systems, may reveal that optimizing each and every element that makes up the system may not improve the system as a whole

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  Operationalising e-Democracy through a System Engineering Approach in Mauritius and Australia

  • Soobhiraj Bungsraz(Author)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  © The Author(s) 2020 S. Bungsraz Operationalising e-Democracy through a System Engineering Approach in Mauritius and Australia https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-1777-8_5

  Begin Abstract

  5. Understanding Systems Engineering

  Soobhiraj Bungsraz

  1   

  (1) University of Newcastle Australia, Newcastle, NSW, Australia

   

    Soobhiraj Bungsraz

  End Abstract

  1 Introduction

  SE is a structured process where staged decision making occurs around an end user’s need to deliver technical solutions. SE is understood as an engineering discipline whose design approach applies systems thinking to combine interdisciplinary fields’ activities in a purposive manner to build a system (solution) (Eisner 2011 ; Department of Defense 1993 , 2008 ; Blanchard and Fabrycky 1998 ). SE designs develop various relationships from a set of processes that, through the system SE creates, constrains the interacting processes to deliver a desired outcome which meets an end user’s need. SE is coupled with new and emerging technologies, which creates opportunities for new and improved systems being developed for humans’ use (Blanchard and Fabrycky 1998 : 17). SE’s design success criteria are that it must meet the end user’s need initially and also during the life cycle of the system.

  SE can be seen as a complex process that combines the required disciplines together (input) so that they interact with each other to create the knowledge, hardware and software in a specific way to deliver a desired function (output). To develop a solution, SE combines technical and managerial systems to make it work together and communicate with each other. There are three key elements in the SE process: a function, a system where the function will exist and the end user who needs the function to be designed. The relationship between function, system and the end user has feedback, which is a key to linking each of the elements to the others in different ways during the SE design and operational stages. These links are discussed below and are within a SE process systems framework. However, they are dynamic in the sense that they can be customised to suit a project like e-democracy.

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  AI Factory

  Theories, Applications and Case Studies

  • Ramin Karim, Diego Galar, Uday Kumar(Authors)
  • 2023(Publication Date)
  • CRC Press

    (Publisher)

  The operational framework shown in Figure 7.18 encompasses the data collection and analytics for the control system to be able to affordably manage operations and sustainment across the lifecycle. This framework can support definition and advanced application of data analytics and Big Data approaches to the digital threads that define the interaction between primary and enabling systems, the enterprise, and the deployed environment, providing the variables which contribute to operational outcomes and effectiveness (Gaska et al., 2015). FIGURE 7.18 Operational data analytics for SoS and external context (Gaska et al., 2015). The analysis of feedback from actual operations compared to planned suitability analysis during the design phase may necessitate system modifications to adapt to changes (Gaska et al., 2015). 7.5 System Lifecycle The system lifecycle can be defined as the evolution over time of an SoI from conception through to the retirement of the system (ISO/IEC, 2008). The system lifecycle in Systems Engineering is a view of a system or proposed system that addresses all phases of its existence to include system conception, design and development, production and/or construction, distribution, operation, maintenance and support, retirement, phase-out and disposal (Blanchard & Fabrycky, 2006). The IEEE Standard for application and management of the Systems Engineering process specifies the following: The Systems Engineering process (SEP) shall be applied during each level of system development (system, subsystem, and component) to add value (additional detail) to the products defined in the. prior application of the process

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