Philosophical Perspective
Systems Engineering is the art and science of inter-relating the works of many engineers toward a common goal that none of those participating can independently bring to a successful conclusion. The reason for this is that over the many centuries mankind has been on planet Earth we have progressively amassed a very large amount of information long ago surpassing the amount of information that any one human being can master as shown in Figure 1-1.
Over time mankind has determined how to solve increasingly difficult problems by finding ways for people who have mastered an increasingly narrow and deep collection of knowledge to cooperate in attacking those problems. The reality is that every engineer is a specialist today as suggested in Figure 1-2. Domain engineers specialize in depth of their chosen field. System engineers tend to specialize in breadth of knowledge and in how to bring about a condition of closure to development problems faced by teams of specialists. Thus, the saying that a system engineer is a mile wide and an inch deep is actually fairly accurate.
Figure 1-1 It Won’t All Fit
Figure 1-2 We Are All Specialists
Robert Machol, as the editor of the McGraw-Hill “System Engineering Handbook” published in 1965, said that the mind of the system engineer is t-shaped. The reality is that the mind of every human being is t-shaped. Domain specialists depend more on the downstroke while system engineers depend primarily on the lateral stroke. Jeff Grady became convinced that Machol was right after having spent a Saturday afternoon of a down day at the Bein Hoa Air Base North of Saigon in 1968 conversing with the Maintenance Officer of SAC Operating Location 20 (that Jeff was serving as a field engineer for from Ryan Aeronautical) in the Officer's Club bar. They discussed who was contributing more to the world, the specialists or the generalists. The Major claimed to be a specialist applying management skill to whatever he was assigned. Jeff felt he was a generalist supporting all of the systems (engine, airframe, doppler, command-control, guidance, recovery, pressurization, fuel, and electrical) within the unmanned photo reconnaissance aircraft his company produced. After a couple of hours of debate (and drinking) the Major told Jeff that he was not a tech rep so he had to get up in the morning and had to bring their debate to a close. He told Jeff that he was specializing in generalism and abruptly departed before a defense could be mounted. That is exactly what systems engineers do but it was not until Jeff read Machol's comment ten years later that he finally fully understood and accepted the Major's remark and forgave him his abrupt departure.
To be successful in developing product systems that solve problems faced by their clients, a system development enterprise must retain all of the specialists needed to master all of the parts of mankind’s knowledge base related to its chosen system field and organize program work within four sets as a first step: (1) define the problem to be solved in a set of specifications where the content is model driven, (2) solve the problem through a three-step synthesis process composed of design, procurement of needed materials, and manufacturing, (3) prove that the resultant physical product satisfies the content of the specifications through a three-step verification process consisting of item qualification, system test and evaluation, and item acceptance, and (4) manage the complete program throughout the other three activities.
JOG System Engineering offers a set of four core courses covering each of the four fundamental systems engineering tasks as well as courses dealing with particularly important subordinate tasks. These courses, listed in Table 1-1, are available as briefings, one-day tutorials, three-day quarter-based courses, and four-day semester-based courses. The course numbers included in the table are from Section 3 of this web site. An enterprise aware of its strengths and weaknesses can combine these to best match availability of training dollars with their need for training. The four fundamental courses below are each supported by a published textbook all of which were written by the owner of the company specifically to provide textbooks for these courses. Together these four courses form a certificate program and cover the complete systems development life cycle.
Table 1-1 Core Course Configurations
| COURSE TITLE | BRIEFIING | TUTORIAL | QUARTER | SEMESTER |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Systems Overview | 321-101 | 321-201 | 321-301 | 321-401 |
| Systems Management | 321-111 | 321-211 | 321-311 | 321-411 |
| Systems Requirements | 321-121 | 321-221 | 321-321 | 321-421 |
| Systems Synthesis | 321-131 | 321-231 | 321-331 | 321-431 |
| Systems Verification | 321-141 | 321-241 | 321-341 | 321-441 |
All of these courses put forward the owner's belief that while that while the product being created by a program within an enterprise is a system, the program and the enterprise should both be treated as systems as well. The latter two are process systems whereas the system being produced is primarily a product system but they are none the less systems and should be so described by the enterprise as such.
JOG System Engineering can be contracted to accomplish program work for limited periods of time while simultaneously helping employees to become more qualified to accomplish their assigned work.