Every sprinter knows the importance of the first steps out of the blocks. The start is absolutely critical to their success in the race. No sprinter would hamper his start by trading his speedy, lightweight running spikes for a pair of heavy construction boots. And yet, systems engineers quite often …

In my blog post last month, Understanding Your System, I discussed the importance of the system context and system decomposition when defining the physical design of a system. This month I would like to additionally emphasize the role of functional analysis to define the functional design and explain how MBSE …

I have received many questions lately about managing multiple operational architectures in a single project. Frequently, this question is asked in the context of documenting the current as well as the future state of the architecture. In this article, I will discuss the steps in documenting an As-Is (or current) …

The systems engineering tool “Analysis of Alternatives,” or AoAs, impacts a broad range of concepts in systems engineering. In my experience, the inception of a project revolves around smart people—often program managers, technical directors, or business developers—discussing what they’ve heard or read or seen as an opportunity to do something …