Systems Engineering for the Digital Age

Chapter 2Mission and Systems Engineering Methods

Benjamin Kruse, Brian Chell, Timothy D. West, and Mark R. Blackburn

Stevens Institute of Technology, School of Systems and Enterprises, Hoboken, NJ, USA

Problem

As noted in Chapter 1, this initial research began in 2013 because the sponsor (NAVAIR) was concerned about the cycle time required to perform their mature Systems Engineering Technical Review (SETR) process for analyzing a mission, developing system requirements, performing system analysis and design, and conducting system testing in order to produce an integrated air vehicle. Their traditional “Vee” process relied on milestone‐centric document review as the primary mechanism to perform insight and oversight, which drove longer development cycles and stop‐work situations, which contributed to cost and schedule growth. They needed a faster, cheaper approach that was conducive to continuous design review and real‐time decision making, one that leveraged a comprehensive Digital Engineering Ecosystem to not only perform these tasks but also to capture the rationale behind them. They also wanted to leverage technology to identify contradictory requirements earlier in the analysis and design phases when the design was still fluid, rather than during system integration and testing of a near‐final design, where design changes are significantly more expensive. NAVAIR also wanted 25% reduction in development time from that of the traditional large‐scale systems, and they believed ...