The Application of Systems Engineering to the Synthesis of Enabling Products: An Aircraft Support System

摘要

A system consists of its operational element, that is, the product, and one or more enabling elements. Traditional systems engineering (SE) is devoted to the formulation of requirements for and the synthesis of the operational elements with little attention to the enabling elements. A typical enabling element is the support system for an aircraft. The heart of the support system is a support data system which manages the flow of data and equipment among the various elements of the support system. This data system is the focus of this paper. However, the structure and functionality of the entire support system and relationship to the aircraft are described. The traditional SE processes are used to synthesize the data system. These include the development of a mission statement, the performance of a functional analysis, the assignment of requirements, identification of interfaces, the creation of a functional architecture, the allocation of requirements to system elements, and the selection of a final system construct. During these steps it is necessary to focus on the needs of the operational product itself, the aircraft.