System Engineering

One of the major unintended consequences of Acquisition Reform efforts during the 1990s was a reduction in rigor of sustainment planning and effectiveness throughout materiel development programs. As the evidence of this problem mounted over the past decade, the Department of Defense (DoD) initiated efforts to rejuvenate sustainment planning during the early phases of program development. This article provides brief descriptions of the actions that have been taken, or that are being planned, to achieve this goal.

Scenario management (SM) means different things to different people, even though everyone seems to admit its current importance and its further potential. In this paper, we seek to provide an interdisciplinary framework for SM from three major disciplines that use scenarios -strategic management, human-computer interaction, and software and systems engineering -to deal with description of current and future realities. In particular, we attempt to answer to the following questions: How are scenarios developed and used in each of the three disciplines? Why are they becoming important? What are current research contributions in scenario management? What are the research and practical issues related to the creation and use of scenarios, in particular in the area of requirements engineering? Based on brainstorming techniques, this paper proposes an interdisciplinary definition of scenarios, frameworks for scenario development, use and evaluation, and directions for future research. 1 The initiative for this effort stemmed from a European Long Term Research Project within the ESPRIT program of the European Union, called CREWS (Cooperative Requirements Engineering With Scenarios), which is coordinated by the first author. Workshop participants listed in the acknowledgments at the end of this paper have contributed to these results in the stimulating atmosphere of Dagstuhl Castle. The workshop was also organized in cooperation with the IFIP Working Group 2.9 (Requirements Engineering), the RENOIR Network of Excellence, and with the RE groups in the British Computer Society and the German Informatics Society. The workshop convened leading researchers and practitioners from various disciplines, in order to cross-examine the effectiveness and efficiency of using scenarios as a tool for modeling, design, development and (technical and organizational) implementation. A corollary theme was the question how the three different disciplines manage scenarios as complex artifacts throughout the planning and systems lifecycle. Selected individual research results by the workshop participants and other researchers have been collected in special issues of the IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering [31] and the Requirements Engineering Journal

Requirements Engineering has become inescapable for industrial projects. But in every day life, project actors (acquirers, systems engineers, software engineers, information system analysts, domain experts, etc…) are facing multiple constraints: to meet project or company goals (quality, delays, costs), to define and balance requirements from various stakeholders, to use dedicated tools, to create traceability… And one of the key remaining questions is still: how to implement Requirements Engineering in the most efficient way ?

The availability of the ITER machine to perform its scientific program is strongly dependent on the performance of the different Remote Handling (RH) systems constituting the ITER Remote Maintenance System (IRMS). The lifecycle of the IRMS will largely exceed 40 years from initial concept design and proof testing through to machine decommissioning. Such a long lifecycle requires that a rigorous approach is put in place to guarantee the technical capabilities of the highly innovative IRMS, its efficiency and its availability. For this purpose, an IRMS System Engineering and IRMS lifecycle management approach has been adopted by ITER. The approach aims at ensuring the IRMS full operability and availability at an acceptable cost of ownership over the full ITER machine assembly and operations period. The IRMS lifecycle management method described in this paper covers such subjects as specific requirements for IRMS design reviews, monitoring during manufacture, factory and site acceptance testing, integrated commissioning, decontamination, maintenance and re-qualification strategies, requirements for Integrated Logistical Support during operations. The updating and implementation of the IRMS lifecycle strategy and this procedure will be managed and monitored by the Remote Handling Integrated Product Team (RH-IPT). Although developed for the IRMS, the basic principles and procedures of lifecycle management could be applied to other ITER plant systems whose reliability and availability will be essential for the continued operation of the ITER machine.

Rapid development methodologies are popular approaches for the development of modern software systems. The goals of these methodologies are the inclusion of the client into the analysis, design and implementation activities, as well as the acceleration of the system development phases through an iterative construction approach. These methodologies also claim to manage the changing nature of requirements. However, during the development of large and complex systems by a small and technically competent development team, there is a danger that certain unforeseen practical implications are introduced into the development process by rapid development methodologies. In this paper we reflect on some observed practical implications of rapid development methodologies after the completion of two projects that involved the construction of large and complex software systems.

The Spaceport Processing Systems Branch at NASA Kennedy Space Center has developed and deployed an agent based tool to monitor the Space Shuttle's ground processing telemetry stream. The application, the NASA Engineering Shuttle Telemetry Agent, increases situational awareness for system and hardware engineers during ground processing of the Shuttle's subsystems. The agent provides autonomous monitoring of the telemetry stream and automatically alerts system engineers when predefined criteria have been met. Efficiency and safety are improved through increased automation. Sandia National Labs' Java Expert System Shell is employed as the rule engine. The shell's predicate logic lends itself well to capturing the heuristics and specifying the engineering rules of this spaceport domain. The declarative paradigm of the rule-based agent yields a highly modular and scalable design spanning multiple subsystems of the Shuttle. Several hundred monitoring rules have been written thus far with corresponding notifications sent to Shuttle engineers. This paper discusses the rule-based telemetry agent used for Space Shuttle ground processing and explains the problem domain, development of the agent software, benefits of AI technology, and deployment and sustaining engineering of the product.

Safety-critical systems are widely used in different domains and lead to an increasing complexity. Such systems rely on specific services such space and time isolation as in the ARINC653 avionics standard. Their criticality requires a carefully driven design based on an appropriate development process and dedicated tools to detect and avoid problems as early as possible.

A work in progress of a tool designed to help sports coaches to analyze their players using an RFID technology connected to a 3-layer software is described in this paper. A few ranging techniques available in conventional RFID systems were studied to best fit this application scenario. Together with the RFID equipments, there is a 3-layer system managing all the data. The software bottom layer is responsible for the low-level communication between the software and the hardware. The middle layer is the system engine where all the calculation is performed. Finally, the top layer is the software part responsible for showing reports and the player analyzed. The system has 2 tracking modes, one for 2D player location in the field, and a 3D mode to capture players' movement in small area sports. It has 2 report modes also, one for real-time report displaying each player's actual location in the field; and the other to present reports with statistics of the player such as distance covered, a heat map of the field showing where the player is at a time interval and number of sprints.

Future studies of episodic processes in the ocean and earth will require new tools to complement traditional, ship-based, expeditionary science. This will be enabled through the construction of innovative facilities called ocean observatories which provide unprecedented amounts of power and two-way bandwidth to access and control instrument networks in the oceans. The most capable ocean observatories are designed around a submarine fiber optic/power cable connecting one or more seafloor science nodes to the terrestrial power grid and communications backhaul. This paper defines the top level requirements that drive cabled observatory design and the system engineering environment within which a scientifically-capable infrastructure can be implemented. Commercial high reliability submarine telecommunication technologies which will be crucial in the design of long term cabled observatories are then reviewed. The top level architecture of a generic cabled observatory, describing the main subsystems comprising the whole and defining technological approaches to their engineering, is then described, along with some example design choices and tradeoff studies.

The Solar Dynamic (SD) Ground Test Demonstration (GTD) program demonstrates the operation of a complete 2 kW, SD system in a simulated space environment at a NASA Lewis Research Center (LeRC) thermal-vacuum facility. This paper reviews the goals and status of the SD GTD program. A brief description of the SD system identifymg key design features of the system, subsystems and components is included. An aerospace industry/government team is working together to design, fabricate, assemble and test a complete SD system.

Background: Since publication in 1977 of plasmid pBR322, many breakthroughs in Biology have depended on increasingly sophisticated vector platforms for analysis and engineering of given bacterial strains. Although restriction sites impose a certain format in the procedures for assembling cloned genes, every attempt thus far to standardize vector architecture and nomenclature has ended up in failure. While this state of affairs may still be tolerable for traditional one-at-a-time studies of single genes, the onset of systems and synthetic biology calls for a simplification -along with an optimization-of the currently unwieldy pool of genetic tools. Results: The functional DNA sequences present in the natural bacterial transposon Tn5 have been methodically edited and refactored for the production of a multi-purpose genetic tool named pBAM1, which allows a range of manipulations in the genome of Gram-negative bacteria. This all-synthetic construct enhances the power of minitransposon vectors for either de-construction or re-construction of phenotypes á la carte by incorporating features inspired in systems engineering: modularity, re-usability, minimization, and compatibility with other genetic tools. pBAM1 bears an streamlined, restriction site-freed and narrow-host range replication frame bearing the sequences of R6K oriV, oriT and an ampicillin resistance marker. These go along with a business module that contains a hostindependent and hyperactive transposition platform for in vivo or in vitro insertion of desired DNA into the genome of the target bacterium. All functional sequences were standardized for a straightforward replacement by equivalent counterparts, if required. pBAM1 can be delivered into recipient cells by either mating or electroporation, producing transposon insertion frequencies of 1.8 × 10 -3 and 1.02 × 10 -7 , respectively in the soil bacterium Pseudomonas putida. Analyses of the resulting clones revealed a 100% of unique transposition events and virtually no-cointegration of the donor plasmid within the target genome. Conclusions: This work reports the design and performance of an all-synthetic mini-transposon vector. The power of the new system for both identification of new functions or for the construction of desired phenotypes is shown in a genetic survey of hyper-expressed proteins and regulatory elements that influence the expression of the σ 54dependent Pu promoter of P. putida.

The infrastructure departments of the Portuguese municipalities need to make great efforts in beginning or continuing to use advanced information technology tools to increase institutional productivity and effectiveness in managing their municipal infrastructures. Nowadays they use or are beginning to use independent management systems for each type of infrastructure, i.e., road pavements, bridges, signs, water pipelines, sewer pipelines, parks, etc. In the future, they need to begin the development of an Integrated Infrastructure Management System (IMS). This paper focuses on the issues and needs that emerged from some studies developed by the authors involving the implementation of transportation management systems in local municipalities. This paper first introduces and discusses the functions of various participating divisions inside a municipal department of infrastructures. Then, the paper identifies the issues and needs that must be fully understood and considered in the development of an Integrated Infrastructure Management System. Doing so involved determining and standardizing an effective base linear referencing system (LRS) to meet its needs, standardizing data terminology, determining the shared data needs of the several divisions inside the department of infrastructures, and developing a comprehensive database design with focused attention given to the types of data analysis functions performed by each division. The paper includes the application of the IMS in road maintenance management and road safety management. The two sub-systems, a road maintenance management system and a road safety management system use the same base linear referencing system. In both subsystems, in order to handle dynamic segmentation, the road network model is composed by road segments with (x, y) coordinates and measure (m) values.

Most suppliers in the automotive industry are facing the challenge of implementing Automotive SPICE, a domain-specific model of ISO/IEC 15504, which was first published in 2005. Original equipment manufacturers have increasingly requested SPICE certifications from their suppliers in order to effectively evaluate the development processes and identify reliable partners. To support organizations in their software process improvement effort, the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) developed the IDEAL model. This guide is, however, influenced by the SEI's work on CMM and based on the experiences with very large organizations. The goal of this paper is to examine the suitability of the IDEAL model for the implementation of Automotive SPICE at a medium-sized R&D department. Preliminary results from an action research study at a global systems engineering company are discussed. The data indicate that adjustments are especially needed with regard to the factors participation and communication. Also, informal networks between companies, early decision-making and usability are shown to play an important role and might be added to the model.

The construction of ITER will represent a major challenge for the fusion community at large, because of the intrinsic complexity of the tokamak design, the large number of different systems which are all essential for its operation, the worldwide distribution of the design activities and the unusual procurement scheme based on a combination of in-kind and directly funded deliverables.

This paper describes a methodology to integrate air transportation demand estimates in the preliminary aircraft design process. The paper describes the adaptation of the Transportation Systems Analysis Model (TSAM) developed by the Air Transportation Systems Laboratory at Virginia Tech for NASA Langley Research Center to predict potential demand of aerospace vehicle concepts. TSAM uses traditional air transportation systems engineering techniques to: 1) predict the number of intercity trips generated in the country based on socio-economic factors, 2) distribute these trips across the country, 3) predict the most likely modes of transportation used to execute these trips, 4) predict flights and trajectories associated with air transportation trips, and 5) predict impacts of the intercity trips generated in the National Airspace System (NAS). The paper includes a case study to estimate the potential demand for advanced tilt-rotor aircraft technology operating in the Northeast Corridor in the United States.

SUMMARY - It is nowadays widely accepted that the increasing concentration of the so-called greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is altering the Earth's radiation balance and causing the temperature to rise. This process in turn provides the context for a chain of events which leads to changes in the different components of the hydrological cycle, such as evapotranspiration rate, intensity

This chapter has two goals. The first goal is to compare Machine Learning (ML) and Knowledge Discovery in Data (KDD, also often called Data Mining, DM) insisting on how much they actually differ. In order to make my ideas somewhat easier to understand, and as an illustration, I will include a description of several research topics that I find relevant to KDD and to KDD only. The second goal is to show that the definition I give of KDD can be almost directly applied to text analysis, and that will lead us to a very restrictive definition of Knowledge Discovery in Texts (KDT). I will provide a compelling example of a real-life set of rules obtained by what I call KDT techniques.

Literature on Unified Modeling Language (UML) and aspect-orientation often focus on improving the software development process [2]. This paper presents a systems engineering perspective that motivates an aspect-oriented software architectural analysis approach using ...

This paper reports results of research into the definition of requirements for new consumer products––specifically, electro-mechanical products. The research dealt with the derivation of design requirements that are demonstrably aligned with stakeholder needs. The paper describes a comprehensive process that can enable product development teams to deal with statements of product requirements, as originally collected through market research activities, in a systematic and traceable manner from the early, fuzzy front end, stages of the design process. The process described has been based on principles of systems engineering. A case study from its application and evaluation drawn from the power sector is described in this paper. The case study demonstrates how the process can significantly improve product quality planning practices through revision of captured product requirements, analysis of stakeholder requirements and derivation of design requirements. The paper discusses benefits and issues from the use of the process by product development teams, and identifies areas for further research. Finally, the conclusions drawn from the reported research are presented.

Data Mining has become a buzzword in industry in recent years. It is something that everyone is talking about but few seem to understand. There are two reasons for this lack of understanding: First is the fact that Data Mining researchers have very diverse backgrounds such as machine learning, psychology and statistics. This means that the research is often based on different methodologies and communication links e.g. notation is often unique to a particular research area which hampers the exchange of ideas and the dissemination to the wider public. The second reason for the lack of understanding is that the main ideas behind Data Mining are often completely opposite to mainstream statistics and as many companies interested in Data Mining already employ statisticians, such a change of view can create opposition.

This paper describes how to use a positive deviance-inspired process for improving the practice of systems engineering, and how positive deviance fits into an evolutionary improvement strategy. It illustrates the process with examples from both systems engineering and cases studies outside of systems engineering. In particular we cite the experience of the team that authored the DoD systems engineering guide for systems of systems (SoS) [Ref 1]. They developed a representation of how successful SoS engineering practitioners view and do systems engineering that is substantially different from their individual system counterparts. The cases outside of systems engineering relate to an antistarvation program in rural Vietnam and a 150-year old problem of inadequate hand scrubbing and infections in hospitals [Ref 2]. Even with substantial progress in technology, processes, and efficiencies, complex problems from enterprise systems engineering to nutrition to medical needs still stubbornly resist improvement. By using a positive deviance-inspired approach, this can be reversed.

Swarm intelligence courses have been offered at many universities all over the world from early 1990s. However, the field of Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) -a swarm intelligence technique -is still relatively young without any standard teaching method. This paper describes an educational software tool for aid the teaching of PSO fundamentals in MATLAB Ó (MATrix LABoratory) software environment of MathWorks. In this context, an application of mobile robotics planning is developed with a friendly graphical user interface in MATLAB for teaching PSO design. Graduate students of Intelligent Systems course of Industrial and Systems Engineering Graduate Program at Pontifical Catholic University of Paraná (PUCPR, Brazil) can then use this educational software tool called PSOLeT (particle swarm optimization learning tool) to learn and evaluate basic optimization designs. This paper also summarizes the proposed software tool and gives an application in mobile robotics.

Pharmaceutical development and manufacturing systems typically rely on a Quality by Testing (QbT) model that use release testing and other measures to ensure product quality. However, there is a significant gap between typical pharmaceutical production system capability and supplied quality. To sustain high levels of product supply quality, the industry incurs a high cost of quality and retains value at risk. This paper presents research results from a systems engineering perspective using case study data that quantitatively evaluates the gap between pharmaceutical production system sigma and supplied quality. It also identifies the extent to which emerging Quality by Design (QbD) eliminates system contradictions that prohibit higher production system sigma performance.

The term " assurance" has been used for decades in trusted system development as an expression of confidence that one has in the strength of mechanisms or countermeasures. One of the unsolved problems of security engineering is the adoption of measures or metrics that can reliably depict the assurance associated with a specific hardware and software system. This paper reports on a recent attempt to focus requirements in this area by examining those currently in use. It then suggests a categorization of Information Assurance (IA) metrics that may be tailored to an organization's needs 1 . We believe that the provision of security mechanisms in systems is a subset of the systems engineering discipline having a large software-engineering correlation. There is general agreement that no single system metric or any "one-prefect" set of IA metrics applies across all systems or audiences. The set most useful for an organization largely depends on their IA goals, their technical, organizational and operational needs, and the financial, personnel, and technical resources that are available.

Prototyping of embedded hardware/software systems is important, because it shortens the path from specification to the final product. Prototypes play a major role in decision making, concept and design validation, feature and limit exploration, as well as design verification in every phase of the product development cycle, including product planning, requirement engineering, and product development. This overview discusses the motivation for building prototypes, provides the key areas for research and explains how prototypes can assist in product planning and throughout all steps of the engineering process. Special attention is given to prototyping in the industry to support the design and testing of multimodal and multifunctional embedded systems.

Scenario management (SM) means different things to different people, even though everyone seems to admit its current importance and its further potential. In this paper, we seek to provide an interdisciplinary framework for SM from three major disciplines that use scenarios -strategic management, human-computer interaction, and software and systems engineering -to deal with description of current and future realities. In particular, we attempt to answer to the following questions: How are scenarios developed and used in each of the three disciplines? Why are they becoming important? What are current research contributions in scenario management? What are the research and practical issues related to the creation and use of scenarios, in particular in the area of requirements engineering? Based on brainstorming techniques, this paper proposes an interdisciplinary definition of scenarios, frameworks for scenario development, use and evaluation, and directions for future research. 1 The initiative for this effort stemmed from a European Long Term Research Project within the ESPRIT program of the European Union, called CREWS (Cooperative Requirements Engineering With Scenarios), which is coordinated by the first author. Workshop participants listed in the acknowledgments at the end of this paper have contributed to these results in the stimulating atmosphere of Dagstuhl Castle. The workshop was also organized in cooperation with the IFIP Working Group 2.9 (Requirements Engineering), the RENOIR Network of Excellence, and with the RE groups in the British Computer Society and the German Informatics Society. The workshop convened leading researchers and practitioners from various disciplines, in order to cross-examine the effectiveness and efficiency of using scenarios as a tool for modeling, design, development and (technical and organizational) implementation. A corollary theme was the question how the three different disciplines manage scenarios as complex artifacts throughout the planning and systems lifecycle. Selected individual research results by the workshop participants and other researchers have been collected in special issues of the IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering [31] and the Requirements Engineering Journal

The air bag restraint system in automobiles has received a great deal of attention since the summer of 1996. The purpose of this paper is to review the successes and failures of the air bag from its introduction in 1988-1996 and to relate these successes and failures to the requirements that led to the current air bag design. The issue addressed in this paper is whether the systems engineering development process that led to the first generation air bag system could be considered reasonably successful. This question is not the same as whether the first generation air bag was better than no air bag system for the spectrum of drivers and passengers in automobiles and light trucks. Rather the issue is whether the first generation air bag system addresses the spectrum of requirements one could expect from such a system. Finally suggestions are made about how the requirements development process can be improved for all systems, considering the obvious and not-so-obvious mistakes that were made during the development of the air bag.

This paper describes the use of the Levels of Conceptual Interoperability Model (LCIM) as a framework for conceptual modeling and its descriptive and prescriptive uses. LCIM is applied to show its potential and shortcomings in the current simulation interoperability approaches, in particular the High Level Architecture (HLA) and Base Object Models (BOM). It emphasizes the need to apply rigorous engineering methods and principles and replace ad-hoc approaches.

The Job-shop scheduling is one of the most important industrial activities, especially in manufacturing planning. The problem complexity has increased along with the increase in the complexity of operations and product-mix. To solve this problem, numerous approaches have been developed incorporating discrete event simulation methodology. The scope and the purpose of this paper is to present a survey which covers most of the solving techniques of Job Shop Scheduling (JSS) problem. A classification of these techniques has been proposed: Traditional Techniques and Advanced Techniques. The traditional techniques to solve JSS could not fully satisfy the global competition and rapidly changing in customer requirements. Simulation and Artificial Intelligence (AI) have proven to be excellent strategic tool for scheduling problems in general and JSS in particular. The paper defined some AI techniques used by manufacturing systems. Finally, the future trends are proposed briefly.

In the past few years, we witnessed a rapid progress in service-oriented computing (SOC), which represents a new computing paradigm. SOC changes the way we develop and use software and hardware. Major enabling techniques, including service-oriented architecture (SOA), service-oriented enterprise (SOE), service-oriented infrastructure (SOI), Web services (WS), and associated protocols and standards are being established. This paper focuses on the system engineering issues and how these engineering issues manifested in SOA development processes. SOSE differs from traditional system engineering because it emphasizes on reusability, dynamic and adaptive nature, and unique model-driven approach.

The planet Mars, while cold and arid today, once possessed a warm and wet climate, as evidenced by extensive fluvial features observable on its surface. It is believed that the warm climate of the primitive Mars was created by a strong greenhouse effect caused by a thick CO 2 atmosphere. Mars lost its warm climate when most of the available volatile CO 2 was fixed into the form of carbonate rock due to the action of cycling water. It is believed, however, that sufficient CO 2 to form a 300 to 600 mb atmosphere may still exist in volatile form, either adsorbed into the regolith or frozen out at the south pole. This CO 2 may be released by planetary warming, and as the CO 2 atmosphere thickens, positive feedback is produced which can accelerate the warming trend. Thus it is conceivable, that by taking advantage of the positive feedback inherent in Mars' atmosphere/regolith CO 2 system, that engineering efforts can produce drastic changes in climate and pressure on a planetary scale.

Page 1. Systems Engineering Research David Jacques, Ph.D. Chair, Systems Eng Programs Department of Systems and ... Defense Architecture Framework (DoDAF) Research Sponsor: AFRL/RH, Wright-Patterson AFB Maj David O'Malley Major Jonathan Zall ...

This paper presents a technique, Simulation Activity Diagrams (SAD), developed to lessen the modelling burden during the initial requirements gathering phases of a simulation project. The technique also allows the capture and visual communication of detailed information, to manufacturing personnel, which may otherwise be lost in detailed programming code.

The topics presented in this book have been organized into 6 parts and 19 chapters. Part 1 presents an introduction to systems and systems engineering in the context of system science and good engineering practice. Part 2 addresses the system design process as a series of evolutionary steps, progressing from the identification of a need through conceptual design, preliminary design, detail design and development, and test and evaluation. Part 3 derives some of the most useful mathematical models and tools for systems analysis. Emphasis is placed upon the application of modeling and analysis techniques as an integral part of the systems engineering process. Part 4 addresses design for operational feasibility by discussing those characteristics of design found to be most significant for successful system operation and customer satisfaction. Separate chapters are devoted to reliability, maintainability, usability (human factors), supportability (serviceability), producibility, disposab...

This paper advances the premise that the best seller book by Stephen Covey: The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and the Systems Approach share common-principles and philosophy. Indeed, each of the seven habits-Be proactive; Begin with the end in mind; Put first thing first; Think widwin; Seek first to understand, then to be understood; Synergize; and Sharpen the saw-is related to some principles and/or steps upon which the Systems approach is based. Given the notoriety that Covey's book has achieved in the public, the comparison of Covey's philosophy to the philosophy of the Systems approach can help improve the understanding of systems engineering.