System Engineering Management, 5th Edition

Chapter 8System Engineering Program Evaluation

Inherent within and part of the overall system engineering management activity is a four-step process: (1) the initial definition of system requirements; (2) the ongoing activity of fulfilling these requirements through a good and effective system design and development effort; (3) the measurement, evaluation, and assessment of the results; and (4) providing feedback and taking any necessary corrective action to achieve or exceed the initially specified objectives.

The subject of requirements has been emphasized to a great extent in Chapters 2 and 3. More specifically, the development of system operational requirements, the maintenance concept, and the identification and prioritization of technical performance measures (TPMs), described in Sections 2.4 through 2.6, constitute the steps involved in defining the requirements for the system. These requirements (which are also described in the various design-related sections in Chapter 3) are then allocated and apportioned downward to the various subsystems and below, and are included in the appropriate specifications (refer to Section 3.1). Through this allocation process, and resulting from decisions pertaining to outsourcing, the requirements for each of the different suppliers are then determined. In essence, this is where the process starts; that is, in the definition of requirements.

The next step is to identify the tasks that must be accomplished and the organizational approach ...