| The role of the systems engineer defines that he or she be proactive and guide the program manager and their customers through their decisions to enhance the effectiveness of system development—producing faster, better, and cheaper systems. The present lack of coverage in literature on what these decisions are and how they relate to each other may be a contributing factor to the high rate of failure among system projects.; At the onset of the system development process, decisions have an integral role in the design of a system that meets stakeholders' needs. This is apparent during the design and qualification of both the Development System and the Operational System. The performance, cost and schedule of the Development System affect the performance of the Operational System and are affected by decisions that influence physical elements of the Development System. The performance, cost, and schedule of the Operational System is affected by decisions that influence physical elements of the Operational System.; Traditionally, product and process have been designed using know-how and trial and error. However, the empiricism of engineers and program managers is limited which can, and has led to costly mistakes. To date, very little research has explored decisions made in the engineering of a system. In government, literature exists on procurement processes for major system development; but in general literature on decisions, how they relate to each other, and the key information requirements within one of two systems and across the two systems is not readily available. This research hopes to improve the processes inherent in the engineering of systems.; The primary focus of this research is on department of defense (DoD) military systems, specifically aerospace systems and may generalize more broadly. The result of this research is a process tool, a Decision System Model, which can be used by systems engineers to guide the program manager and their customers through the decisions about concurrently designing and qualifying both the Development and Operational systems. |
