THE HUMAN SIDE OF SYSTEMS ENGINEERING

摘要

Systems Engineering is the application of structured design, implementation, and test techniques with the purpose of reducing the development time while improving product quality. It can be done in many ways, as long as there is a corresponding hierarchical organizational structure supporting top-down design definition and bottom-up implementation/ verification/ manufacturing integration. Systems Engineering, by its very nature involves a look at the full product life cycle and it requires a well-planned Concurrent Engineering approach in order to be successful. Anyone who ever tried to apply the systems engineering principles in a large organization knows much too well the problems presented by "corporate chimneys", which tend to create design partitions many times different from the ones the systems engineering team/paradigm needs. Hence, systems engineering activities have to be planned together with the organizational structure, or the latter has to be adapted to systems engineering needs. Even with the appropriate organizational structure in place, the systems engineering approach can fail when the target groups are not involved from the very beginning in the process, tools and methods definition. Another aspect of systems engineering is the need for processes to maintain the sound systems engineering practices even after the original authors have moved on.