Author: Ron Kratzke

The Importance of Digital Engineering in a Newly Defined World

In late October, I attended the National Defense Industry Association Systems Engineering Conference, held in Springfield, Virginia. The conference covers a wide spectrum of system engineering topics, primarily supporting the Department of Defense, but also in support of other federal agencies. There were many interesting topics and discussions over the …

Technical Measures in System Design

In the past couple of weeks, I’ve been asked about methods to capture and track important or essential performance parameters, generally referred to as “technical measures” in a model-based environment. This post is dedicated to understanding technical measures and how to identify them in the operational and system architecture. In …

A Report from Down Under: INCOSE IS 2017

Each year, generally right after the Fourth of July, the International Council of Systems Engineering (INCOSE) holds their International Symposium (IS). This year, the symposium was held in Adelaide, Australia. The venue was the newly renovated Adelaide Convention Center. The theme of this year’s event was “Unlocking Innovation through Systems …

Leveraging Affinity Diagrams during System Design

Chapter 4 of the INCOSE Systems Engineering Handbook (4th ed.) provides a thorough discussion of “Technical Processes for the System Lifecycle.” The first two technical processes are (i) business or mission analysis and (ii) stakeholder needs and requirement definition. Each of these processes leverages engagement of system designers with business …