THE BRIAR PATCH: FROM DOD TO COMMERCIAL SYSTEMS ENGINEERING

摘要

Most of us are familiar from childhood with the Uncle Remus story where Br'er Rabbit escapes being the main dinner course by imploring his captor to "Throw me in that briar patch!". Following defense secretary Perry's initiative to move DoD toward commercial standards and best practices, many DoD systems engineers have wondered what distinguishes commercial systems engineering from traditional aerospace processes and practices. This paper describes the experiences and observations from a DoD systems engineer's transition into a pure commercial product development environment. Topics include: What is 'commercial' systems engineering? What practices from DoD provide the highest added value in the commercial world? What are the unique challenges to application of systems engineering in the commercial world? What lessons can DoD learn from commercial industry? And, finally, is this commercial 'briar patch' a viable future address for you as an aerospace-trained systems engineer?