The Top 10 Illusions of Systems Engineering: A Research Agenda

Traditional systems engineering is predicated upon prediction and control. Prediction is required to attain some degree of confidence that design and manufacture decisions will yield desired results. Control is necessary to ensure that subsystems meet the needs of the overarching system. While this paradigm was successful for decades, evolving circumstances have resulted in two challenges. First, the increasing complexity of systems has eroded the system engineer's ability to predict the outcome of his or her design decisions. Second, the need to interconnect existing systems in the form of a system of systems challenges the system engineer's ability to exercise technical control because of the operational and managerial independence of the constituent systems. The application of a process predicated on invalid assumptions is not likely to achieve desirable results. This paper presents the top 10 assumptions, which are often illusory in today's systems environment. Unfortunately, our current systems engineering practices are based on heuristics dependent on many of these assumptions, often in the context of aerospace and defense programs, that have been acquired during the past half century, rather than on a solid body of scientific knowledge and are inadequate to support the discipline's necessary transformation. Consequently, research is critical to create the foundations that can support a new paradigm for systems engineering, one that is based on the reality of engineering systems in which deterministic prediction and control are no longer possible in many circumstances.