Systems Engineering Tools and Methods

With coverage that draws from diverse disciplines, Systems Engineering Tools and Methods demonstrates how, using integrated or concurrent engineering methods, you can empower development teams. Copiously illustrated with figures, charts, and graphs, the book offers methods, frameworks, techniques, and tools for designing, implementing, and managing large-scale systems and includes case studies that exhibit the effect of the systems engineering (SE) concept and its importance during the design and development of a complex system. These case studies provide realistic insights into SE methods.

Emphasizing the importance of an integrated approach to the design life cycle of complex systems, the book stresses the relationship between SE and project management. It reviews the principles of functional analysis as design activities, discusses verification, validation, and testing (VV& T) methodologies and tools for complex systems, and presents a framework for assessing technology integration at the systems level. It also delineates the development of a business process reengineering plan based on one used for the restructuring, retraining, and redeployment of elements of the Kennedy Space Center workforce.

The book includes examples of the design and development of several large complex systems from the DoD and NASA. Each system provides the backdrop for SE learning principles such as technical decision making, requirements definition, logistics support planning, verification, and risk mitigation. Discussions of a proposed integrated reliability management system for faster time-to-market electronics equipment, a new integrative approach to the allocation of adjustability, the importance of manufacturing with regard to designing components of a system, and methods and algorithms used in the solution of combinatorial optimization problems rounds out the coverage.

Waste, inadequate system performance, cost overruns, and schedule problems often result from failure to apply advanced systems engineering early in project development. By applying the methods outlined here, you can anticipate and avoid these costly roadblocks when possible, and quickly mitigate their damaging effects when necessary.

Ali K. Kamrani is an associate professor of industrial engineering and director of the industrial engineering graduate program studies. He is also the founding director of the Design and Free Form Fabrication Laboratory at the University of Houston. He has been a visiting professor at the Princess Fatimah Alnijris’s Research Chair for Advance Manufacturing Technology (AMT), Industrial Engineering Department at King Saud University, Riyadh. Saudi Arabia. He received his BS in electrical engineering in 1984, his MEng in electrical engineering in 1985, his MEng in computer science and engineering mathematics in 1987, and his PhD in industrial engineering in 1991, all from the University of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky. His research interests include the fundamental application of systems engineering and its application in the design and development of complex systems. He is the editor in chief of the International Journal of Collaborative Enterprise and the International Journal of Rapid Manufacturing. He is a professional engineer at the state of Texas.

Maryam Azimi is a PhD candidate in the Department of Industrial Engineering at the University of Houston. Azimi received her BS in textile technology engineering (2001) and her MS in textile management (2004) from Tehran Polytechnic Amirkabir University), Tehran, Iran. Her current research interests include systems engineering, statistics, and application of data mining in health care and Computer Aided Design/Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAD/CAM).