Systems Engineering Demystified

Get to grips with systems engineering life cycles, processes, and best practices and discover techniques to successfully develop complex systems

Key Features

• Discover how to manage increased complexity and understand systems better via effective communication
• Adopt a proven model-based approach for systems engineering in your organization
• Apply proven techniques for requirements, design, validation and verification, and systems engineering management

Book Description

Systems engineering helps us to understand, specify, and develop complex systems, and is applied across a wide set of disciplines. As systems and their associated problems become increasingly complex in this evermore connected world, the need for more rigorous, demonstrable, and repeatable techniques also increases.

Written by Professor Jon Holt – an internationally recognized systems engineering expert – this book provides a blend of technical and business aspects you need to understand in order to develop successful systems. You’ll start with systems engineering basics and understand the complexity, communication, and different stakeholders’ views of the system. The book then covers essential aspects of model-based systems engineering, systems, life cycles, and processes, along with techniques to develop systems. Moving on, you’ll explore system models and visualization techniques, focusing on the SysML, and discover how solutions can be defined by developing effective system design, verification, and validation techniques. The book concludes by taking you through key management processes and systems engineering best practices and guidelines.

By the end of this systems engineering book, you’ll be able to confidently apply modern model-based systems engineering techniques to your own systems and projects.

What you will learn

• Understand the three evils of systems engineering – complexity, ambiguous communication, and lack of understanding
• Realize successful systems using model-based systems engineering
• Understand the concept of life cycles and how they control the evolution of a system
• Explore processes and related concepts such as activities, stakeholders, and resources
• Discover how needs fit into the systems life cycle and which processes are relevant and how to comply with them
• Find out how design, verification, and validation fit into the life cycle and processes

Who this book is for

This book is for aspiring systems engineers, engineering managers, or anyone looking to apply systems engineering practices to their systems and projects. While a well-structured, model-based approach to systems engineering is an essential skill for engineers of all disciplines, many companies are finding that new graduates have little understanding of systems engineering. This book helps you acquire this skill with the help of a simple and practical approach to developing successful systems. No prior knowledge of systems engineering or modeling is required to get started with this book.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction to Systems Engineering
2. Model-Based Systems Engineering
3. Systems and Interfaces
4. Life Cycles
5. System Engineering Processes
6. Needs and Requirements
7. Modeling the Design
8. Verification and Validation
9. Methodologies
10. Systems Engineering Management
11. Best Practices

About the Author

Jon Holt is an internationally-recognized expert in the field of model-based systems engineering. He is an international award-winning author and public speaker and has authored 17 books on systems engineering, including a children’s STEM book. Jon currently works for Scarecrow Consultants, holds a Chair in systems engineering at Cranfield University, and is a Fellow of both the IET and the BCS. He is currently the technical director of INCOSE UK and, in 2015, was identified as one of the 25 most-influential systems engineers in the last 25 years by INCOSE. He is also actively involved in the promotion of STEM where he uses magic, mind-reading, and occasional escapology to promote systems engineering at various festivals.