System Engineering Management, 5th Edition

Preface

Current trends indicate that, in general, the complexity of systems is increasing, and the challenges associated with bringing new systems into being are greater than ever! Requirements are constantly changing with the introduction of new technologies on a continuing and evolutionary basis; the life cycles of many systems are being extended, while at the same time, the life cycles of individual and specific technologies are becoming shorter; and systems are being viewed more in terms of interoperability requirements and within a system of systems (SOS) context. There is a greater degree of outsourcing and the utilization of suppliers throughout the world, and international competition is increasing in a global environment. Available resources are dwindling worldwide, and many of the systems (products) in use today are not meeting the needs of the customer/user in terms of performance, reliability, supportability, quality, and overall cost-effectiveness.

Given today's environment, there is an ever-increasing need to develop and produce systems that are robust, reliable and of high-quality, supportable, cost-effective from a total-life-cycle perspective and that are responsive to the needs of the customer/user in a satisfactory manner. Further, future systems must be designed with an open-architecture approach in mind in order to facilitate the incorporation of quick configuration changes and new technology insertions, and to be able to respond to system interoperability ...