A recent ATI blog from 2022 discussed the INCOSE Certification process; you can read that blog here.
The Systems Engineering Handbook is the source for INCOSE SE certification exams. The 2015 SE handbook (revision 4) had a major revision in July 2023 to revision 5. The purposes of this article are (1) to discuss how technology and world events have driven Systems Engineering and (2) to discuss advances since 2015 in SE research, practice, terminology, approaches, tools, and processes.
World War II was the beginning of Systems Engineering. Systems started to substantially increase in size, complexity, interdependency, and functional specialization. This drove the need to have a System Engineer orchestrate the technical iterative and recursive development requirements, architecture, design, tradeoffs, and analysis processes over the system life cycle. Software and computers started to appear. The Silicon Integrated Chips dramatically improved the advances in computers and software’s capabilities and value. Moore’s law states that the number of transistors on a chip double about every two years, though the cost of computer halves.
In 1994 DoD shifted from Military standards to commercial standards. This was because the commercial market was now the primary driver of technology. This shift also followed commercial world use of more incremental and agile approaches toward development of Systems and Software.
The SE handbook (rev 4) was consistent with ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288:2015, INCOSE Work Groups, and the body of Knowledge for the INCOSE certification process. The SE Handbook is also used as an SE desktop reference book. The SE Book of Knowledge was becoming the greater elaboration of SE “good” practice and more frequently updated. The SE fundamentals have remained the same since the late 1990s for Planned or Software waterfall life cycle approaches.
Since 2015 in Systems Engineering research, practice, terminology, approaches, tools, and processes have made dramatic improvements to deal with the following changes in technology and world events:
- Large increase in software intensive systems
- SE research and tools are rapidly being put into practice to deal with the following.
- System interfaces (loosely defined, plug and play, MOSA, and rapidly changing)
- SoS, Enabling systems, dependencies, and legacy systems.
- Systems being used with other systems not originally designed to work together.
- Tailor SE for cost and schedule overrun risk for appropriate amount of rigor based on approaches, types, and Domain/Sector.
- Supply chain issues and increase in remote working caused by COVID, wars, embargoes, and economic considerations (Example IT support from India).
- Terminology and processes are being adjusted for more flexibility and wider acceptance.
- Concern about cyber security.
- Rise in ISO/IEC/IEEE standards for systems and software Engineering
- INCOSE proliferation of guides for SE subspecialties and topics.
As a result of the dramatic changes to the INCOSE Systems Engineering Handbook, the following updates to existing ATI SE courses are announced.
SE Tailoring Course Updated (Offering in 2023). Go here to register for Free Session or register for the Full Course here.
Fundamental of SE Course (including On-Demand version) Updated (Offering in 2023). Go here to register for current SE Fundamentals on-demand class, or wait for the updated class coming soon.
CSEP Exam Preparation Course– Updated (Offering late in 2023). This updated course will be available in January 2024. Please let us know if you are interested in the updated class, and we will make sure we send you updates on how to register for this class.
Please consider enrolling in one or more of these ATI courses to remain current with INCOSE SE practices.