Glossary · Engineering, integration and validation
Systems engineering
Also known as: SE
German: Systems Engineering
In engineering, systems engineering is an interdisciplinary approach to define, develop, integrate, verify, validate and maintain complex systems over their whole life cycle, starting from stakeholder needs. It coordinates mechanical, electrical, software and other disciplines through requirements, architecture and interfaces.
- Validation
- Standards
In one sentence
Systems engineering is an interdisciplinary approach to define, develop, integrate, verify and maintain complex systems across their life cycle.
Example
For a new robot cell, systems engineering defines the requirements, splits them among robot, gripper, safety system and PLC, and plans how each interface is verified.
How it applies
- Engineering: Systems engineers derive System requirements from stakeholder needs, define the architecture, allocate functions to subsystems and manage Interface (systems engineering)s. ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288 defines the life cycle processes; INCOSE publishes widely used guidance.
- Verification and validation: Systems engineering plans how each requirement is verified and how the system is validated against its intended use.
- Change: Configuration and change management keep requirements, designs, tests and documentation consistent.
- Documentation: Technical documentation is part of the system. The documentation team benefits from requirement and interface models as a source and should be included in reviews, so information for use stays consistent with the design.
Systems engineering vs. MBSE
Systems engineering can be document-based or model-based. Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) uses formal models, for example in SysML, as the primary source of system information instead of documents.