The Field of Engineering Systems and its Impact on Systems Engineering Presented By Dr. Donna Rhodes Massachusetts Institute of Technology August 9 th,

The Field of Engineering Systems

and its Impact on Systems Engineering

Presented By

Dr. Donna Rhodes Massachusetts Institute of Technology

August 9th, 2005

© 2005 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Rhodes/Hastings 2005

What is Engineering Systems ?

MIT’s Engineering Systems Division New Education Model Selected Examples of Research

Impact of Engineering Systems on Systems Engineering

Discussion Topics


• MIT is tackling the large-scale engineering challenges of the 21st century through a new organization.

• The Engineering Systems Division (ESD) creates and shares interdisciplinary knowledge about complex engineering systems through initiatives in education, research, and industry partnerships.

• ESD broadens engineering practice to include the context of each challenge as well as the consequences of technological advancement.

• ESD has a dual mission: to define and evolve engineering systems as a new field of study and to transform engineering education and practice.

MIT Engineering Systems Division


Essential Points

1. MIT is not trying to rename or to replace Systems Engineering!

2. Engineering Systems is a field of academic study – not a job code, profession, process or practice

3. Engineering Systems is not equivalent to Systems Engineering

4. MIT believes that evolving the field of ES can have a positive impact on evolving SE – as a field and practice


Engineering Systems

DEFINITIONDEFINITION

ENGINEERING SYSTEMS

A field of study taking an integrative holistic view

of large-scale, complex, technologically-enabled

systems with significant enterprise level

interactions and socio-technical interfaces


Engineering Systems

Systems of Interest are…

Technologically Enabled

Large Scale and Complexlarge number of interconnections and components

Dynamic, involving multiple time scales and high uncertainty

Social and natural interactions with technology

Emergent Properties


Examples of Systems of Interest

• Mega-city transportation systems

• Worldwide Air Transportation & Air Traffic Control System

• Consumer supply logistics networks

• Electricity generation & transmission system

• Joint Strike Fighter Program Enterprise

These systems are all technologically enabled, have significant socio-technical interactions and have substantial complexity.

It is also the case that to varying degrees an understanding of them

requires an understanding of the enterprises that constructed

them or within which they operate


Engineering Systems Requires Four Perspectives

1. A very broad interdisciplinary perspective, embracing technology, policy, management science, and social science.

2. An intensified incorporation of system properties (such as sustainability, safety and flexibility) in the design process. • Note that these are lifecycle properties rather than first use properties. • These properties, often called “ilities” emphasize important intellectual

considerations associated with long term use of engineering systems.

3. Enterprise perspective, acknowledging interconnectedness of the product system with the enterprise system that develops and sustains it. • This involves understanding, architecting and developing organizational

structures, policy system, processes, knowledgebase, and enabling technologies as part of the overall engineering system.

4. A complex synthesis of stakeholder perspectives, of which there may be conflicting and competing needs which must be resolved to serve the highest order system (system-of-system) need.


Evolution of any field of study requires evolution of underlying subfields

MIT cites four underlying ES subfields:

• Systems Engineering (including Systems Architecting)

• Operations Research and Systems Analysis (including System Dynamics)

• Engineering Management (including Supply Chain Mgmt)

• Technology & Policy

• Enterprise Architecting (could be a fifth subfield?)


MIT’s Desired Outcomes

CHANGES in ENGINEERING EDUCATION

• In engineering schools across the world, undergraduates will be educated in the fundamental engineering sciences as now but will also be given an appreciation of the engineering systems context in which some of them will be doing their engineering

• At the graduate level, there will be well developed masters and doctoral degrees involving research on the various aspects of engineering systems

IMPACT on REAL WORLD SYSTEMS

• Development of the field of engineering systems will enhance the ability to predict the development of new types and next generations of systems


MIT Engineering Systems

Division New Education

Model

ENGINEERINGSYSTEMS

PoliticalEconomy

Economics,Statistics

Systems Theory

OrganizationalTheory

Operations Research/Systems Analysis

System Architecture& Eng /ProductDevelopment

EngineeringManagement

Technology & Policy

CTL- Center for Transportation

& Logistics

CIPD - Center for Innovation

in Product Development

CTPID - Centerfor Technology, Policy,

& Industrial Development

IPC - Industrial Performance Center

TPP - Technology & Policy Program

MLOG -Logistics & Supply Chains

ESD Doctoral Program

ESD SM Program

SDM - Systems Design & Management

LFM - Leadersfor Manufacturing

ENGINEERING SYSTEMS is a field of study taking an integrative holistic view of

large-scale, complex, technologically-enabled systems with significant

enterprise level interactions and socio-technical interfaces.

ESD is an innovative, cross-cutting academic unit between most MIT School of Engineering departments; the Sloan School of Management; and the School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences

50+ faculty and senior research staff are devoted to teaching & research

Over 400 masters and 60 doctoral students


ESD Goals & ObjectivesESD will be an intellectual home for faculty from engineering,

management, and the social sciences committed to integrative, interdisciplinary engineering systems programs

ESD will develop concepts, frameworks, and methodologies that codify knowledge and define engineering systems as a field of study

ESD will educate engineering students to be tomorrow’s leaders via innovative academic and research programs

ESD will introduce engineering systems into the mainstream of engineering education by working with the MIT engineering departments, the Institute as a whole, and other engineering schools worldwide

ESD will initiate research on engineering systems of national and international importance, working in partnerships with government and industry


MIT ESD Partnerships are an important part of our research strategy

Over 110 corporate partners across many domains and industries and several strategic level partnerships under development

• MITRE Corporation • Four joint MITRE Sponsored Research projects for FY2006

• The Aerospace Corporation • Exploring areas for research collaboration

• Air Force Center for Systems Engineering • Partnership under LAI research program • Several Air Force officers in ESD program

• Systems and Software Consortium, Inc• Partnership between LAI research group and SSCI

• Supply Chain Exchange exists; Systems Engineering “exchange” in concept development


Selected Examples of Doctoral Research MIT Engineering Systems Division


Doctoral Student Research ProfileVictor Tang

Designing Decisions in Complex Organizations

• My research focuses on the application of engineering methods to the design of interdisciplinary senior-executive decisions in large and complex organizations with a special emphasis on the issues of robustness.


Doctoral Student Research ProfileChristine Ng

Environmental First-Movers in the Diesel Vehicle Industry

• My doctoral research explores how environmental regulations can act as a source of competitive advantage for firms with superior technology and environmental performance. I am focusing on the diesel vehicle industry, and its response to emission and fuel regulations in the US, Japan, and EU.


Doctoral Student Research ProfileNick McKenna

Architecting The Project Enterprise: Designing and Implementing the Emergent Project Organization Within a Constrained Market Place

• My research investigates the extent to which the emergent project enterprise could be architected with a view to improving project performance. Project enterprises emerge over time as the contractors required are selected and awarded contracts. The impact of the temporal dynamic and the fundamental contracting relationships are central to understanding the emergence of the enterprise and in delivering a project successfully.


Doctoral Student Research ProfileJosh O’Connell

Design and Implementation of a Flexible Transportation System Using a Life-Cycle Flexibility Framework

• My research is exploring how ITS capabilities are used to create flexibility in transportation systems. It examines what activities at the technical, enterprise and institutional architecture levels are needed to enable, implement and sustain system flexibility, and how these should be structured and executed.


Doctoral Student Research ProfileAdam Ross

Incorporating System Properties into Multi-Attribute Trade Space Exploration

• My research is exploring the relationships between flexibility, adaptability, robustness, and scalability for space systems and how they relate to unarticulated value. I am exploring how these ilities can be quantified and/or used as decision metrics when exploring trade spaces during conceptual design.


Doctoral Student Research ProfileJason Bartolomei

Dynamic Utility in Systems Architecting

• My research seeks to understand the causes and effects of changing stakeholder utility in the context of US Air Force weapon system acquisitions. Insight into dynamic utility will improve program planning strategies and target opportunities for system flexibility.


Doctoral Student Research ProfileHeidi Davidz

Enabling Systems Thinking to Accelerate the Development of Senior Systems Engineers

• My research examines systems thinking development in engineers, including enablers, barriers, and precursors. Better understanding of systems thinking development provides a foundation for more effective and efficient educational interventions and employee development for engineering professionals across industry, government, and academia.




Two PerspectivesBoth are Needed – Depending on Context

Systems Engineering Perspective Engineering Systems Perspective

Policy Viewed as fixed and constraining system solution

Viewed as variables --can be created or adapted to optimize overall solution

Socio-technical

Viewed as considerations in engineering practice

Viewed as primary in understanding the overall system

Stakeholders Primary focus on customer and end-users with secondary focus on other stakeholders

Balanced focus on all stakeholders impacted by engineering system -- product, enterprise, environment

Focus Focus is primarily on the product system

Focus is on product system, enterprise system, and environment

Practitioners System architects, systems engineers, related specialists performing systems engineering process

System architects, enterprise architects, engineers, operations analysis, project managers, policy makers, social scientists, and many others

Vision Predictably develop systems with value to primary stakeholders

Predictably develop sustainable engineering systems with value to society as a whole

Ref: Rhodes, D. and Hastings, D. The Case for Evolving Systems Engineering as a Field within Engineering Systems, ESD Symposium March 2004


Where Does Systems Engineering Fit ?

• Over the years, systems engineering has suffered from an identity crisis in the sense that it has never quite fit as an engineering science, nor has it quite fit as a management science.

• This ambiguity has resulted in organizations being unsure of where its practitioners should be placed within the overall organizational structure, particularly in domains outside aerospace and defense.

• Similarly, in universities we have evidenced schools, divisions, or colleges often reluctant to serve as the host for systems engineering departments or programs, citing a lack of academic rigor.

Does the field of engineering systems provide an intellectual home for the field of systems engineering, as a hybrid

engineering-management-policy science into which it can more logically fit?



personal perspective

• ES can provide a broader academic field of study (context field) for SE

• ES brings together a more diverse set of researchers and scholars who can benefit from (and contribute to) systems engineering principles and research

• ES establishes a larger footprint in an university to drive a strong research focus and investment in systems research

• ES has been a catalyst for 35+ universities coming together around a broader systems education agenda


Similar Trends at Undergraduate Level (Harvard Crimson, July 29, 2005)

Engineering To Broaden Focus

Harvard’s push to expand its Division of Engineering and Applied Science (DEAS), begun in 2001, falls directly in line with recommendations released this past June by the National Academy of Engineering.

In their report, the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) called for engineering departments to widen their focus and to include more interdisciplinary work, both in research and the curriculum if they want to keep pace with an increasingly globalized world

Harvard is not alone, however, in its push towards interdisciplinary study. In many ways, the National Academy report is following the tack of top engineering schools, rather than leading them in a new direction.

The new approach recommended by the report—which calls for engineering to be integrated with other fields looking to create a new undergraduate track or concentration that focused on the interdisciplinary interplay of engineering and society.

“What will increase, …. will be the formalization of interdisciplinary affiliations, in the form of faculty joint appointments and institutes that bring together people from different fields,”


Essential Points

MIT is not trying to rename or to replace Systems Engineering!

Engineering Systems is a field of academic study – not a job code, profession, process or practice

MIT believes that evolving the field of ES can have a positive impact on evolving SE


Additional Information on MIT ESD

ESD Website http://esd.mit.edu/

ESD Research Centershttp://esd.mit.edu/research_industry.html

ESD Working Papers http://esd.mit.edu/WPS/

ESD Symposium Monographs and Papershttp://esd.mit.edu/symposium/monograph/ http://esd.mit.edu/symposium/agenda_day3.htm

Refer to ESD website for specific research interests and working papers of ESD faculty, researchers, and graduate students

Documents

The Field of Engineering Systems and its Impact on Systems Engineering Presented By Dr. Donna Rhodes Massachusetts Institute of Technology August 9 th,