By Dr. Steven Dam Complexity is in systems engineering’s very nature. As systems engineers, we create solutions to complex problems. So, from time to time, we forget important elements of the system’s lifecycle. We might even believe we are remembering them, but we do not give these elements the time and attention they desperately need. […]
By Dr. Steven Dam Risk Analysis is a part of every decision we make. Uncertainty, ambiguity, and variability are in constant flux as we move along in projects and try to determine the risk in each scenario we encounter. This is the purpose of the Monte Carlo Simulator. In every simulation, whether Monte Carlo or […]
By Elizabeth Steiner A good systems engineering tool helps you synthesize a solution and reduce the workload, allowing engineers to spend time on what’s important. Without a software tool, engineers must manually write down their requirements and models on paper or through a word processing tool, such as Microsoft Word. Not using a software tool […]
Collaborate on the Cloud Innoslate’s Cloud takes collaboration to the next level allowing team members to work on the same documents, diagrams, or charts in the same project at the same time. Import/ Export with MS Office Innoslate’s Import Analyzer reduces manual entity creation by reading .DOCX, .INNO, .XML, and .CSV files and automatically generating […]
By Steven Dam In systems engineering, many practitioners never create a behavior model. They work with requirements, develop plans, perform risk analyses, etc. When modeling, many professionals focus only on the physical models: block diagrams, interface diagrams, etc. Even when they are doing “functional analysis,” we frequently see hierarchy diagrams of the functions, but no […]
By Mallory Jones Systems engineering is not just writing requirements or conducting a requirements analysis. Systems engineering processes take stakeholder needs and create products or systems to support those needs. Requirements are one step in this lifecycle development; they are not the sole process that drives the project from A to B. When producing requirements […]
Could Good Systems Engineering Have Prevented the OG Jurassic Park from Failing? By Liz Steiner The chaotician, Ian Malcolm, predicted that Jurassic Park Island will quickly proceed to behave in an “unpredictable fashion” and that it was “an accident waiting to happen.” In case you don’t remember the 1993 Jurassic Park, John Hammond almost realizes […]
By Steven Dam “Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) and Failure Modes, Effects and Criticality Analysis (FMECA) are methodologies designed to identify potential failure modes for a product or process, assess the risk associated with those failure modes, rank the issues in terms of importance, and identify and carry out corrective actions to address the […]
Most systems engineers are familiar with modeling languages such as Integrated Definition (IDEF), Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN), Unified Modeling Language (UML), Systems Modeling Language (SysML), and Lifecycle Modeling Language (LML). These languages describe how to draw diagrams for systems engineering. However, their ontologies are limited in the ability to express the wide range […]
By Michael Jordan Systems engineering (SE) has multiple definitions which makes defining the fundamental concepts of the field challenging. The misconception of SE occurs because it’s perceived that there is no process or framework. With so many types of processes out there, it is easy to believe that we pick and choose the processes we […]
