Principles of Systems Engineering (eBook)

Neil G. Siegel (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2022 | 1. Auflage
498 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
978-1-6678-8151-5 (ISBN)

Infos

Principles of Systems Engineering is a practical, step-by-step guide to the creation of complex engineered systems. This is a companion book to the same author's Engineering Project Management textbook. This book is based on many years of research, and decades of actual, hands-on experience in successfully performing and leading complex engineering projects. The book introduces what the author calls the systems method, and then goes stage-by-stage through the details of the systems engineering process. Many examples and tips from real projects are used to illustrate the processes and techniques described. Neil G. Siegel, Ph.D., spent many years as the lead designer &/or manager of a number of successful engineering projects, including projects of unusual technical difficulty, and at the largest scales. After retiring as sector Vice-President & Chief Technology officer of the Northrop Grumman Corporation, he is at present the IBM Professor of Engineering Management at the University of Southern California. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Inventors, and a fellow of 4 engineering societies, among many other honors and awards. More information is available at neilsiegel.usc.edu.

Textauszug

1.About systems engineering

1.1Introduction

In this book, we are going to discuss something called “systems engineering”. I am going to try to convince you of several things:

•That “systems engineering” is important for the world, and therefore needs to be done well, and those who do it well can derive significant satisfaction from that achievement

•That there is an established methodology and approach to performing good systems engineering, and that it can be explained and taught

•That “systems engineering” is a particular discipline within a larger field called “engineering”, and that it is possible to learn the specific role of “systems” within “engineering”

•Because of the above – together with the fact that systems engineers are in general paid very well –systems engineering is in fact a great career choice

My first assertion, above, was that “systems engineering” is important for the world. Let’s examine that for a moment.

In your opinion, what is the most important human accomplishment of the last 2,000 years? Think about it for a moment, and fix something in your mind, before you turn the page.

When I ask this question on the first day of my systems engineering courses, I get lots of really good and interesting answers. Obviously, this is a matter of opinion, and we can all have an opinion. But here is my answer:

The most important human accomplishment of the last 2,000 years is the doubling of the average length of human life

What the archeologists and other scientists who study these matters tell is that that for hundreds of thousands of years, the human life-span averaged around 35 years . . . until around 125 years ago . . . when the average human life-span started increasing . . . and recently the average human life-span has reached more than 70 years.

To depict this improvement, I created the following graph (Figure 1-1) from data made public by the World Health Organization:

Figure 1-1. Human life span through the ages.

In fact, in many parts of the world, the typical human life-span is now more than 80 years.

Obviously, living to 70 or 80, rather than just to 35, is viewed by most people as a very good thing, indeed!

But what caused this doubling of human life-expectancy? This question has been studied by the United States National Academies1 . Apparently, engineering projects deserve most of the credit, due to the following types of large-scale societal systems that have been created by such projects:

•Water treatment and delivery

•Sewage treatment and transport

•Motor-powered tractors

•Motorized transport and delivery

•Large-scale electricity generation and delivery

•Affordable, mass-scale refrigeration

•Canning and other mass-scale food storage / preservation techniques

•. . . and so forth

And underlying all of these is the ability to generate, on a suitably-large scale, the mechanical power (which can take the form of electricity, petroleum, natural gas, hydro-electric generation, etc.) that enable all of those large-scale societal systems listed above.

The U.S. National Academy has estimated that these sorts of engineering products are responsible for about 80% of the addition to human life expectancy; the rest is mostly due to modern medicine2.

And all of these important societal systems were created by engineering projects, and to succeed, those types of projects today and in the future will require systems engineering.

Ergo: If you want to change the world for the better, become a systems engineer!

1.2Definition of systems engineering

“Systems engineering” is a phrase with two words. We can examine those words one at a time.

Engineering is a discipline that uses knowledge from science and other fields, together with many other skills, in order to create a practical effect. This effect might take the form of a device or a service that has some beneficial effect for a set of intended users, and for society as a whole.

Example: Engineering has been able to design automobiles that produce much less pollution per mile driven than earlier automobiles. That benefits the actual users (e.g., the owners and drivers of those automobiles), because one of the ways in which the engineers achieved that lower level of pollution was to increase the fuel-efficiency of those automobiles, which decreases the cost of driving. But society as a whole also benefits, even those who don’t drive that particular automobile (and even those who don’t drive any automobile!), because that decreased amount of pollution improves air quality in the entire operating region of that automobile.

In ordinary conversation, the terms “engineering” and “science” are often used almost interchangeably. This is not correct! Science seeks to study and understand the world; it asks questions about the underlying mechanisms and principles, and its goal is to make reliable and verifiable quantitative predictions about the behavior of natural phenomena. The focus in science is not on creating a practical effect, but instead is on creating the knowledge that allows those reliable and verifiable quantitative predictions. One can create “good” science that is never used to create a practical effect. Of course, some science is used (mostly by engineers!) to create a practical effect, but that is not the goal of the scientist3.

Engineering, on the other hand, is not aimed at such “knowledge for knowledge’s sake”; such knowledge may be important, but discovering it is a job for scientists, not for engineers and engineering projects. We engineers, instead, keep our focus on achieving those practical results.

An engineering project, however, is not a science project4; it is important for you to understand the difference between science and engineering. Look at figure 1-2, below.

Figure 1-2. Science and engineering have different objectives.

Our engineering projects must be feasible, else we will not create that practical benefit. Therefore, we may well have to consult with scientists in order to make sure that we are not promising more than we can feasibly deliver. But sometimes, we engineers create something that works, but for which there is not yet a complete scientific explanation; the steam engine, the antibiotic, and the transistor are all examples of this. When the scientists see the practical device that has been so created, they might be motivated to go and figure out the underlying phenomena; for example, the operation of actual steam engines motivated people to go out and work out what became known as the laws of thermodynamics, e.g., the scientific explanation of why the steam engine worked. Sometimes the science precedes the practical application, but just as often, the practical application precedes the science.

A presentation by an Englishman named Chris Wise (who, at the time, was a professor at University College, London) that I attended in 2013 got me thinking about what one might call “the tao of engineering”; tao is a Chinese word meaning approximately “way” or “path”. I believe that the path to successful engineering encompasses much more than what some people might narrowly define as “engineering”. I have adapted what Professor Wise said to arrive at the following depiction (see Figure 1-3, below).

As you can see in this figure, I take an expansive view of what is needed to be a good engineer. As engineers we must base our work on facts, measurement, and rigor; we must actually achieve a practical result in the real world. This leads us to pay attention to math and science. But in my experience, that is not enough to succeed; we must also exercise judgement about what our product should be, create a compelling vision of what it could be, and use craftsmanship and artisanship to build it well. And every engineering activity requires the collaboration of multiple people – in fact, often very large teams of people. So, factors like who will do the engineering with you, and how you motivate, train, and coordinate all of those people are also essential aspects of good engineering. Because of this, I think of engineering...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 31.12.2022
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Technik
• ISBN-10: 1-6678-8151-5 / 1667881515
• ISBN-13: 978-1-6678-8151-5 / 9781667881515