Simon Ramo defined systems engineering:
| Systems engineering is a branch of engineering that "concentrates on the design and application of the whole as distinct from the parts…looking at a problem in its entirety, taking into account all the facets and all the variables and relating the social to the technological aspects." |
Systems engineering started as a recognized discipline during World War II, and grewafterwards to a large body of practice in the defense and aerospace industries. Meanwhilein the commercial sector a group of practices were developed that had more emphasis ontime, costs, and the marketplace, and provided competitive advantage. Although notexplicitly integrated and labeled as systems engineering, these practices have effectivelyprovided commercial product developers with useful systems engineering approaches andtools.
This tutorial integrates these practices and presents this highly effective commercialsystems engineering approach.
The key process elements of the commercial systems engineering approach are:
* Listening to the Voice of the Customer
* Strategy and Platform Planning
* Enhanced QFD (including Pugh concept selection, fault trees and FMEA)
* Product Function Structure
* Quality Engineering (Taguchi Methods)
These are integrated and implemented to perform the systems engineering process whichprovides large commercial benefits:
* Fast time to market (TTM)
* Excellent quality, reliability, and customer satisfaction
* Low costs
This tutorial will introduce the students to modern, commercially-successful systemsengineering.
Dr. Don Clausing
is the Xerox Fellow in CompetitiveProduct Development at MIT, where he has been since 1986, following three decades inindustry. He is the author of Total Quality Development (1994), which describes the modernapproach to the development of competitive products. This book is a product of the MITcourse that Dr. Clausing created when he came to MIT. Dr. Clausing is a Member of theBoard of Directors, INCOSE.
Mr. Lou Cohen
became an independent consultant in 1992 following threedecades in industry as a product developer and quality manager, the last 22 years at theDigital Equipment Corporation (DEC). He is the author of the book that makes QFDoperational, Quality Function Deployment: How To Make QFD Work For You. This book is basedon Mr. Cohen's extensive experience with QFD at DEC and as a consultant. This includesapplications to both hardware and software systems.
Dr. Madhav Phadke
became an independent consultant in 1991 followingfourteen years at the Bell Telephone Laboratories of AT&T. He was the pioneer in theUnited States in working with Dr. Genichi Taguchi, starting in 1980. Dr. Phadke authoredthe authoritative English-language book on Dr. Taguchi's methods, Quality EngineeringUsing Robust Design (1989).