The recent attention to the Zika virus and its potential global spread illustrates once again that the truly important questions occur at the systems level. Without systems thinking the questions can “hide” from decision makers emerging only later as damaging unintended consequences of decisions made without an adequate systems understanding. …

Influenced by the broad applicability of systems engineering and the fact that it is generally taught top-down, many systems engineers believe that they consistently engage in a variant of clean-sheet design. While systems engineering certainly enables fresh thinking and new looks into a problem space, the reality is that we …

Systems engineering can be characterized by many dualities – architecture and analytics, process and innovation, technical and communication. Perhaps most critical is the duality of inspiration and perspiration. Good systems engineering is defined by fresh thought, creativity, and ideation. But inspiration alone is not enough. There is a tremendous amount …

Requirements models, activity models, interface models, parametric models, reliability models, thermal models, power models, finite element models, … the list goes on and on. In this drive towards model-based systems engineering (MBSE) – and ultimately model-based engineering to connect the product lifecycle – how can we make sense of this …