No abstract

In the community of professional engineers, the Systems Engineer is often perceived as an inferior engineer. Misconceptions are especially prevalent among technical design engineers for whom up‐front Systems Engineering should be considered absolutely essential. The Systems Engineer often works in an environment where his engineering peers, and sometimes even management, considers his contribution to be subordinate, of second‐class value, and at times, a nuisance. This paper examines this critical problem from the perspective of an aerospace engineer who spent five years working as a flight controls design engineer (where Systems Engineering was treated with considerable bias), and men transferred into Systems Engineering and has since been working on the opposite side of the fence. An exploration into the causes of the phenomena is detailed in the paper, with special emphasis on the factors perpetuating these misconceptions. A set of practical recommendations (some applicable for working Systems Engineers and some applicable for Managers) is then presented for use in mitigating and eventually dissolving these non‐productive barriers.

Requirements Verification is an important aspect of Systems Engineering that suffers from a lack of practical tools specifically tailored to encompass the entire verification process. The need for automation is great, specifically for tools able to interface with relational databases. Most of the current Systems Engineering tool development is geared towards program synthesis and design, with less attention given to integration and verification. This paper examines the needs of Verification Engineers with emphasis on developing a computer based tool for automating and managing the verification process. A typical verification flow is outlined, the goals and benefits that could be derived from automation are reviewed, and then a hypothetical Verification Engineering Management System (VEMS) is described.