TABLE OF CONTENTS The system engineering process as initially conceived involved close cooperation between design engineers charged with synthesis of requirements into a practical design solution responsive to those requirements and an expanding cast of specialty engineers contributing to the conversation. Unfortunately, some companies allowed their specialty engineering and design groups to become isolated from each other. They evolved a condition where design drawings were reviewed in a serial way by each specialty engineering discipline after the drawings were completed. The feedback from the specialty groups had to be reacted to by design, if there was any budget left at that point in the program, followed by another review cycle. This serial process is a blueprint for cost and schedule overrun.
On one program involving nuclear survivability requirements, a designer had his design rejected three times by the survivability analyst before asking how he could get it right and complete the job. The analyst replied that he wasn't sure, but he would know the correct design when he saw it. Many designers have had similar experiences with specialty engineering groups and engineers and it drives them to distraction. Interest in concurrent engineering during the late 1980s focused on restoring a condition of real-time teamwork between design and specialty engineers such that the design drawings included the specialty concerns before they would go off-board. The designers and specialty engineers were encouraged to work concurrently to develop a design solution that satisfies the performance requirements and specialty constraints.
Eventually,...
