Guidance for Systems Engineers
Both for the entry-level systems engineer learning the discipline of SE, and the more experienced systems engineer seeking the knowledge required to accomplish a work activity, the SEBoK serves as a primary information source and quick, comprehensive reference for systems engineering information.
What these SEs find in the SEBoK includes:
- definitions of terms
- explanations of basic concepts and principles
- brief accounts of topics
- references to articles and textbooks that cover topics in-depth, and
- more general information assets and sources of knowledge.
For practicing systems engineers, having the SEBoK makes it possible to gain knowledge more quickly and reliably than they would otherwise. The goal is to spend more time getting work done, and less time searching for and compiling new information from disparate sources.
For the team of practicing engineers, the gap in knowledge between more- and less-experienced engineers can be a major obstacle. The SEBoK serves as a tool for the team to build a framework of agreed-upon definitions and perspectives. The consistency of such a framework enhances communication across the team. New teams, especially, can benefit from bridging the gap between legacy and more-recently-acquired knowledge. See Enabling Teams in Part 5.
How Systems Engineers Use the SEBoK
Researching SE-related subjects, identifying educational resources, and connecting with individuals or organizations which offer specialized expertise are all part of the job for the practicing systems engineer. The time available to the SE for these activities can be quite limited. The SEBoK is designed to ease the pressure on the SE in this situation, in several ways:
- Because its content based on research, proven practices, and emerging knowledge, the SEBoK makes high-quality information available to the SE right away.
- Being composed of articles of 2000 words or less in most cases, the SEBoK enables the SE to quickly get an overview of relevant topics.
- By providing primary references, each topic offers a direct route to more detailed information.
- Even greater detail, breadth, and a sense of what's relevant in the SE literature are available through the additional references each topic provides.
- Since the SEBoK sources have been reviewed and vetted by a team of experts, the SEBoK helps the SE avoid less reliable information which can be hard to eliminate within Internet search results.
- The SE who needs to connect with educators and researchers can find relevant names and institutions in SEBoK topics and references.
Systems engineers using the SEBoK may choose one or more of several approaches:
- searching on keywords or article names, using the text field, [1] button, and [2] button at the top right of each SEBoK wiki page
- scanning the Quick Links, Outline (where the Table of Contents is located), or Navigation indexes, and following links from there to articles that seem likely to be of interest
- searching on keywords using an Internet search engine
- reading through one or more of Parts 1 through 7 in sequence
Reading the SEBoK in sequence is especially suitable for the practicing engineer who is new to SE, or is enrolled in an SE-related training course. For this engineer, SE (or some aspect of it) is a subject to be learned comprehensively. This is made easier by navigation links from each article to the previous, next, and parent articles as found in the Table of Contents.
Implementation Examples
Practicing systems engineers will find the examples useful when these examples are aligned with the domain in which the systems engineer is working, though some more general examples will occasionally be useful. Because the SEBoK focuses on the discipline of SE and has minimal coverage of the numerous domains where SE can be applied, the practicing systems engineer will get limited understanding of domain-specific concerns from the discussion in Parts 2 through 6. However, some SE examples within a particular domain are provided in Part 7, Systems Engineering Implementation Examples. Though all relevant domains are not covered, these examples may be useful for understanding how an application domain may impact SE activities. For SEBoK version 1.0, the authors plan to add additional examples.
Model-Based Systems Engineering Practitioners
Practicing systems engineers will use the SEBoK, and in particular its knowledge area on Representing Systems with Models, to practice Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) in order to create models of systems to support the various system life cycle activities, including their requirements, high-level architecture, detailed design, testing, usage, maintenance, and disposal.
Faculty members will use the SEBoK to support curriculum development and assessment, and ensure accuracy and completeness of the MBSE part of the curriculum. They will be able to define the modeling methodologies and languages they wish to include in their curriculum, such as System Modeling Language (SysML) and Object-Process Methodology (OPM).
SE researchers will be able to adopt an MBSE approach and base their SE research on models in order to make their research topics more formal and rigorous.
Vignette: Systems Engineering for Medical Devices
Tara Washington has been working as a engineer for the medical device company HealthTech for seven years. Besides continuing to improve her strong software skills, she has shown an aptitude for systems thinking. She has also taken courses in electrical engineering , mechanical engineering, and physiology to obtain a better understanding of the products that her software is supporting. This has led her to perform as an effective software system analyst on the SE teams of her last two projects .
HealthTech’s Research Division has come up with a new concept for a highly programmable radiation therapy device that monitors the effect of the radiation on various parts of the body and adjusts the parameters of the radiation dosage to maximize the effectiveness of the dosage, subject to a number of safety constraints . The software-intensiveness of the device has led Tara’s current project manager to recommend her as the lead systems engineer for the design and development of the product.
Tara welcomes the opportunity, but realizes that, although she has picked up enough of the domain knowledge that the lead SE role needs, her SE skills have been largely picked up by intuition. In order to build on her SE capabilities , she consults some of HealthTech’s lead systems engineers and studies the SEBoK.
She finds that Part 1, SEBoK 1.0 Introduction, gives her an overview of the SEBoK and the Scope and Context of the SEBoK topic outlines the key activities that she will need to lead, as well as those activities she will need to collaborate on with the systems developers and project/systems management personnel. It also provides her with an overview of the other parts of the SEBoK that will help her understand SE concepts, principles , and modeling approaches in Representing Systems with Models in Part 2; life cycle processes , management, technical practices, approaches for specifying, architecting , verifying and validating the hardware, software, and human factors aspects of the product, as well as common pitfalls to avoid and risks to manage (Systems Engineering and Management in Part 3); guidelines for the SE of products (Applications of Systems Engineering in Part 4 and its references); required SE Knowledge, Skills, Abilities, and Attitudes (KSAA) needed for a project (Enabling Systems Engineering in Part 5 and its references); and specialty engineering disciplines that may be key to the project’s success (Related Disciplines) in Part 6. In particular, as Tara is aware of the deaths caused by the Therac-25 radiation therapy device, she not only reads the Safety Engineering topic in Part 6, but also all of its key references.
While reading about SE life cycle process models in Systems Engineering and Management in Part 3, Tara sees the reference to the Next Generation Medical Infusion Pump Case Study in Systems Engineering Implementation Examples in Part 7. She finds the case study highly relevant to her medical-device situation and organized into phases similar to those used at HealthTech. In particular, it gave Tara a good understanding of how a project such as hers would progress by concurrently evaluating technology opportunities , understanding the needs of various device stakeholders (e.g., patients, nurses, doctors, hospital administrators, and regulatory agencies), and progressing through a succession of increasingly detailed prototypes , specifications, designs, plans , business cases, and safety analyses of a product. The case study also pointed her toward the U.S. National Research Council book, Human-System Integration in the System Development Process, which was the expanded source of the case study and also provided numerous good practices for human-systems needs analysis, organizational analysis, operations analysis, prototyping, usability criteria formulation, hardware-software-human factors integration, process decision milestone review criteria, and risk management .
As a result, Tara is able to better plan, staff, organize, control, and direct the SE portion of the HealthTech radiation therapy device project and to help bring the project to a successful conclusion.
Summary
The SEBoK will be viewed by practicing engineers as an authoritative knowledge resource that can be accessed quickly to gain essential high level information. It will be viewed as a quick method for identifying the best references for more in depth study and research into SE topics when an individual’s current level of understanding is not enough to get the job done.
The SEBoK can also be used in training courses and as a resource for teaching practicing engineers.
References
Works Cited
None.
Primary References
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Additional References
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SEBoK Discussion
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