This paper discusses the role of case studies in systems engineering and systems management, especially case studies that involve systems acquisition. We first provide a brief overview of case studies, including some of the analysis techniques useful for the conduct of case studies. Next, we discuss a two-dimensional framework for systems engineering and management case studies. The framework is in the form of a 9 row by 3 column matrix. We present a number of vignettes of case studies, at least one for each of the 27 cellular entries in this matrix. The hope is that this will be a stimulus and precursor of additional systems engineering and management case study efforts, both in terms of appropriate frameworks for these and in the actual conduct of case study research.

Albino rats were reinforced for pressing one of two available response levers in the presence of one auditory stimulus and for pressing the other lever in the presence of a second auditory stimulus. For one group a distinctive change in visual stimulation was consistently correlated with reinforcement on one lever and not the other. Discrimination performance of this group was superior to that of a group for which the visual stimulus was randomly correlated with reinforcement for responding on both levers. Comparisons were also made between these groups and two other groups, for which either every one or none of the reinforcements was correlated with the visual stimulus, respectively. These comparisons revealed that the differences between the first two groups were predominantly due to retarding effects of the inconsistent correlations between the visual stimulus and reinforcement. An associativemediational account of the effects of the visual stimulus was offered.

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A fundamental intellectual thrust of Systems Engineering thinking is its extensive nature: the ability to integrate across many dimensions and disciplines, and to formulate problems. By contrast, most of our engineering and scientific education has concentrated on intensive thought processes: the concentration on relatively low dimensional submodels and the solution of problems. This paper provides a framework to guide systems engineers in multidimensional thought processes and problem formulation. It is based on the constraint theory developed by Dr. George J. Friedman.