What Is Systems Engineering?
What Is Systems Engineering?
According to the International Council on Systems Engineering
• Systems engineering is an interdisciplinary approach and means to support the realization of
successful systems.
• It focuses on defining customer needs and required functionality early in the development
cycle, documenting requirements, then proceeding with design synthesis and system
validation while considering the complete problem:
Operations
Performance
Test
Manufacturing
Cost and Schedule
Training and Support
Disposal
What Is Systems Engineering?
• Systems engineering integrates all the disciplines and specialty groups into a team effort
forming a structured development process that proceeds from concept to production to
operation.
• Systems Engineering considers both the business and the technical needs of all customers
with the goal of providing a quality product that meets the user needs.
Pragmatic Principles of Systems Engineering
1. Know the problem, know the customer, and know the consumer.
2. Use effectiveness criteria based on needs to make the system decisions.
3. Establish and manage requirements.
4. Identify and evaluate alternatives so as to meet on a solution.
5. Verify and validate requirements and solution performance.
6. Maintain the integrity of the system.
7. Use an articulated and documented process.
8. Manage against a plan.
The Composition and Decomposition of Complex
Systems
• With this process a complex problem, the system (Figure 1), is decomposed into smaller
problems ”subsystems (Figure2).
• Each subsystem can be well-structured about, successfully designed and manufactured, and
then integrated to produce the solution system.
• The engineering disciplines that support the approach to system decomposition are indirect in
the attributes of the preceding definition, such as understanding the operational
characteristics, manufacturability, testability, and so on.
The Composition and Decomposition of Complex Systems
Figure 1. A system in its environment
Figure 2. A system composed of two subsystems
The Composition and Decomposition of Complex Systems
• This decomposition (or successive refinement) process proceeds until the systems engineer achieves
the right results, as provided by quantitative measures that are specific to that particular systems
engineering domain.
• In most cases, the subsystems defined in the initial composition are themselves further decomposed
into subsubsystems, with the result appearing as in Figure 3.
Figure 3 : A system composed of two subsystems, one of
which contains two subsubsystems
The Composition and Decomposition of Complex
Systems
• In the most complex systems, this process continues until a large number of subsystems are
developed.
• The systems engineer knows that the job is done and is "right" when the following conditions are
met.
1. Distribution and partitioning of functionality are optimized to achieve the overall functionality of the system with
minimal costs and maximum flexibility.
2. Each subsystem can be defined, designed, and built by a small, or at least modest-sized , team.
3. Each subsystem can be manufactured within the physical constraints and technologies of the available
manufacturing processes.
4. Each subsystem can be reliably tested as a subsystem, subject to the availability of suitable fittings and joins that
simulate the interfaces to the other system.
Key Points
• Systems engineering is a problem analysis technique especially suitable for embedded-
systems development.
• Systems engineering helps us understand the requirements executed on software
applications that run within the solution system.
• Requirements flowdown is primarily a matter of ensuring that all system requirements are
filled by a subsystem or a set of subsystems collaborating.
• Today, the system design must often be optimized for software costs rather than for
hardware costs.
