Moving organisations from a systems engineering approach to a System of Systems approach

Abstract

The research proposes a sequence of project concept outline, choice of project delivery system, development of project architecture and then development of requirements for a System of Systems project (SoS). Research findings on these aspects are then compared with experience on major SoS projects. Risks are identified in the Incremental Commitment Method, incentives examined for the main contractor, the architecture developed and then requirements. This is in contrast to commencing with requirements on many systems engineering based projects. The benefits of remaining imprecise in the definition of requirements, and signing-off requirements progressively, are recognised. Concurrent design is endorsed in order to avoid stove-pipe behaviour by specialists.