Systems Engineering Implementation Examples

To illustrate the principles described in the Systems Engineering Body of Knowledge (SEBoK) Parts 1-6, Part 7 is a collection of systems engineering (SE) implementation examples. These examples describe the application of systems engineering practices, principles, and concepts in real settings. The intent is to provide typical instances of the application of systems engineering so readers can learn from these experiences. This can improve the practice of systems engineering by illustrating to students and practitioners the benefits of effective practice as well as the risks and liabilities of poor practice.

A Matrix of Implementation Examples is used to map the implementation examples to topics in the SEBoK. To provide a broader set of domains, both formal case studies and shorter vignettes are used. For the case studies, an introduction and analysis of the case is given, with references to the full external case study. For the vignettes, the implementation example is described directly. In the literature, a wide variety of examples and formats are considered "case studies." Here, the distinction between a case study and a vignette is that a vignette is a short wiki article written for the BKCASE project and a case study exists externally in the literature.

An initial set of examples is included, anticipating that more will be added over time to highlight the different aspects and applications of systems engineering. In addition, new examples can be added to demonstrate the evolving state of practice, such as the application of model-based systems engineering and the engineering of complex, adaptive systems.