Decision Making in Systems Engineering and Management, 3rd Edition

Appendix BSoftware Fundamentals

B.1 SystemiTool

SystemTool is a Java‐based systemigram drawing and visualization application currently maintained by the Systems Engineering Research Center (SERC), a University Affiliated Research Center of the U.S. Department of Defense. The SERC leverages the research and expertise of senior lead researchers from 22 collaborator universities throughout the United States. The SERC is unprecedented in the depth and breadth of its reach, leadership, and citizenship in systems engineering through its conduct of vitally important research and the education of future systems engineering leaders.

SystemiTool is available free for download at https://sercuarc.org/serc-tools/ in both a Windows and Mac version. SERC also has an online SystemiTool application for use. The download consists of a single executable file that will install SystemiTool on your computer to default Program Files location on the C‐drive. As will most stand‐alone application installations on Windows 10, we recommend that you disconnect from WiFi to do the installation to avoid accidentally installing the program on your OneDrive.

After completing the installation, launching the application opens the main drawing environment shown in Figure B.1. The drawing, labeling, and colorizing options used to create systemigrams are easily understandable if you have used any digital drawing application feature before. In fact, there really is no Help option despite the menu item at the top. ...