THE APPLICATION OF SYSTEMS ENGINEERING TO SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY PROJECT PLANNING

摘要

Within the Department of Defense (DOD) there has been an active effort to reinvigorate Systems Engineering disciplines and to attain their inherent benefits across the entire weapon systems acquisition process. While the typical application of Systems Engineering has been in the System Program Offices emphasizing design and production, the current initiative extends the Systems Engineering expectations earlier in the science and technology (S&T) realm of the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL). In response, AFRL has adopted a systems engineering process for planning and executing activities in the Exploratory Development and Advanced Development budget activities. The Materials and Manufacturing Directorate within the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL/RX) has identified three phases in the S&T project life cycle--planning, execution, and closeout. Believing that if a project is planned well, it is more likely to execute well, the Systems Engineering team within AFRL/RX developed a streamlined systems engineering process for S&T planning. This paper describes the application of this process to various materials, processing, and manufacturing problems.