What is Systems Engineering?

Systems Engineering is a “transdisciplinary and integrative approach to enable the successful realization, use, and retirement of engineered systems, using systems principles and concepts, and scientific, technological, and management methods.” (INCOSE)

Modern products are complex systems, and it is increasingly challenging for engineers and other stakeholders with various levels of expertise to create, communicate, and collaborate on design details in the context of uniformly understood design intent throughout the product’s lifecycle. System engineers (SEs) are the practitioners of systems engineering. Using systems thinking principals, SEs capture design intent in a system model, which becomes a connective tissue between detailed implementations of the various parts of these complex systems. Often these system models become a collection of system models referred to as a system-of-systems.

System models allow all business units and their supply chains to maintain a common understanding of design intent. Some of the key benefits include:

Expressing requirements as modeled behaviors instead of text

• Better understanding of requirements, since they are modeled as behaviors instead of being declared in text
• Improved collaboration across teams, since system models allow the teams to interact with graphical and interactive representations of complex architectures and logical/functional breakdowns
• Better understanding of cause and effect, as a central model, makes it easier to see how changes to system components or external factors impact the entire system
• Improved quality and accuracy, as teams can identify and resolve conflicts faster with traceability of the decisions via a PLM-managed digital thread.
• Elimination of systems engineering silos, as SEs become interactively engaged with the rest of the team at every stage of the system’s lifecycle
• Accelerated rate of innovation, as organizations experiment with innovative ideas, SEs can leverage system models to experiment and collaborate with teams on various ways of realizing them

Systems thinking vs. systems engineering

Systems thinking and systems engineering are related concepts, but they are not identical.
Systems thinking is a way of understanding complex situations. It asks people to look beyond single parts and consider how people, processes, technology, and outside factors all work together. Instead of focusing on problems in isolation, systems thinking looks at connections, dependencies, feedback, and unexpected results that can happen when one part of a system changes.

On the other hand, Systems engineering is the field focused on designing, building, testing, and managing complex systems from start to finish. Systems engineers use systems thinking, but they also depend on organized engineering methods, managing requirements, creating system models, planning tests, analyzing risks, and working with different teams to make sure products meet both technical and business goals.

You can think of it this way: systems thinking helps teams understand complex systems, while systems engineering gives them the tools and methods to build and manage those systems well. As products rely more on software and involve many fields, both systems thinking and systems engineering are important. Systems thinking helps organizations predict the effects of changes before they happen, while systems engineering gives the structure and tracking needed to make those changes confidently.

What do systems engineers do?

Systems engineers make sure complex products work as they should by bringing together engineering work throughout the product’s life. Instead of focusing on just one area, they link requirements, system design, teams, product information, and testing to make sure all parts of the product fit together as one system.

Their work starts early in product development and continues through making, using, maintaining, and retiring the product. During this time, systems engineers balance technical needs, cost, timing, risks, rules, and customer needs. They also help teams see how choices in one area can affect the whole product.

Common responsibilities include:

• Defining and managing stakeholder, customer, and system requirements
• Developing system architectures and allocating requirements to subsystems
• Coordinating work across mechanical, electrical, software, electronics, and manufacturing teams
• Establishing end-to-end traceability between requirements, models, tests, and delivered products
• Evaluating engineering tradeoffs and identifying technical risks
• Planning and supporting system integration, verification, and validation
• Assessing the impact of engineering changes across interconnected products and processes
• Maintaining a connected digital thread that supports collaboration throughout the product lifecycle

Where do systems engineers work?

Systems engineers work wherever organizations create complex products that need to work well for a long time. Their skill in connecting different engineering fields is more valuable now, as products use more software, electronics, connections, and AI.

Industries that commonly rely on systems engineering include:

• Aerospace and defense
• Automotive and mobility
• Industrial equipment and heavy machinery
• Medical devices and life sciences
• High technology and electronics
• Energy and utilities
• Transportation and rail
• Government and public-sector engineering programs

In these organizations, systems engineers work with many different groups. They team up with product managers, requirements engineers, software developers, mechanical and electrical engineers, manufacturing teams, suppliers, quality experts, service teams, and program managers.

Since they look at the big picture, systems engineers often connect different engineering fields. They help organizations handle complexity, keep track of changes, lower risks, and make sure products keep meeting rules and customer needs as things change. This broad role makes systems engineering a key practice for organizations that want a strong digital link throughout a product’s life.

System models

While systems engineering tools, methodologies, and systems thinking reflected in the organizational culture are critical for systems engineering, accessibility of the system models at every stage of the product’s lifecycle is foundational. This is because the true value of a system model can only be realized if the rest of the organization and the entire supply chain can leverage these models in their work. System models do not define detailed designs of mechanical, electronic, electrical, or software implementations; they define system and sub-system behaviors on an abstracted representation of the target design architecture, including logical and functional breakdown.

In many organizations system models are also used to capture various business and organizational processes to ensure that there is a uniform understanding and experimenting with them.

Systems engineering and product lifecycle management

Traditionally, systems engineering activities and system models were not integrated with product lifecycle management (PLM) platforms. As a result, the phase of capturing stakeholder requirements in a form of behavioral system model (a high-level abstraction of the future product) was a data and expertise silo without a connection to the PLM’s product lifecycle management of detailed product implementation. That was a significant gap in the product design process since (PLM) is a platform for managing detailed product design data and lifecycle stages, including transition from engineering Bill of Materials (eBOM) to manufacturing Bill of Materials (mBOM).

When an organization can manage SE-generated system model structures as part of the PLM environment, it can develop more innovative products and systems quicker. This is because this allows for continuous interaction between SEs and all other engineering domains at every step of the product lifecycle. When the system engineering and PLM users can “speak the same language,” they can use time and resources more wisely.

5 Reasons to implement systems engineering

1. Product complexity continues to rise exponentially
2. Legacy PLM cannot connect disparate systems, creating data silos
3. Integrates a model-based systems engineering (MBSE) and an open PLM platform
4. Simplifies processes and avoids rework, and shortens development cycles
5. Builds digital thread traceability

How Aras unifies systems engineering and PLM

Aras Innovator, our product lifecycle management platform, offers a central and connected “where” for SEs to collaborate with all other engineering teams. It manages multidisciplinary systems models in a unified digital thread, establishing and maintaining traceability between requirements, models, simulations, collaboration artifacts, physical parts lists, and product feedback throughout the product’s lifecycle This complete product lifecycle traceability follows a product and its digital assets from concept through design, manufacturing, quality, and service.

With all this product data accessible through a single platform, systems engineering and other engineering teams can better iterate and improve products over time without repeating each other’s work or letting small details go unseen. When one piece of a product must change based on customer feedback, new regulations, etc., the ramifications of that change can easily be seen across the system.