Anithashree Chandrasekaran

Exploring the Impact of Systems Architecture and Systems Requirements on Systems Integration Complexity

The need to perform faster systems integration of complex systems require the architect and design team to understand how the selected architecture and design components will impact the systems integration processes complexity (or difficulty). Systems integration process complexity is an outcome of the interaction between degree of feasibility and level of effort required to understand, describe, implement, manage, and document the systems integration process for a given system development and operational environment. This paper analyzes the cause-and-effect relationships between the system requirements, architecture and the systems integration processes complexity. In order to address systems integration issues upfront in the design phase it is necessary to determine if the architecture and design of components, subsystems, processes, and interfaces impacts (and to what extent) systems integration process complexity. This paper also defines and analyzes the impact of the different system architecture and requirements factors on systems integration process complexity. A research framework is developed to understand the cause-and-effect relationships between system requirements, architecture, and integration process. Finally, the paper proposes recommendations based on the causality results. These conclusions are based on research undertaken by the authors on eight development projects in the government sector.

A framework for end-to-end approach to Systems Integration

Systems Integration (SI) is an important element of systems engineering which involves the integration of hardware, software, products, services, business processes, and human. The existing standards, models, and guidelines of Systems Engineering and Software Engineering address SI issues partially and usually view SI from a perspective of integrating physical components. They lack a holistic end-to-end approach to SI. Due to the emerging Systems Engineering challenges and the increasing importance of SI, the need for a holistic approach to SI has become critical. A Systems Integration Framework (SIF) was developed that incorporates the relevant aspects of integration from a lifecycle perspective and sets a foundation to an end-to-end approach to SI.

Benchmarking the redesign of “business process reengineering” curriculum: A continuous process improvement (CPI)

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the application of business process reengineering (BPR) and benchmarking principles to redesign an undergraduate course on BPR to achieve continuous improvements. The principles are applied on a course on BPR in the curriculum of engineering management (EM) program at Stevens Institute of Technology. The EM program aims to provide the students the knowledge and skills, which are necessary to work effectively at the interface between technology, management, and engineering. BPR course (EM435) is recently added to EM programs curriculum to support the need for providing the bridge between the engineering of systems and business operations.Design/methodology/approach – The research approach design is laid out from the time the EM435 course is first offered in the fall of 2006 to the senior year EM students. The students are surveyed and areas of redesign and improvements are identified based on benchmarking against ABET criteria and their associated outco...

Rapid System Development (RSD) Methodologies: Proposing a Selection Framework

Abstract: The current global customer trend requires companies across domains to reduce their product development lifecycle. As a result the exploration of methodologies that will support rapid system development has been gaining importance. The primary focus of this article is to provide a framework for comparative analysis of rapid system development methodologies. The purpose of this framework is to help the project managers and systems engineers choose and tailor an appropriate rapid development methodology to suit their development context and environment. Toward this, the framework identifies and defines a set of critical rapid development attributes. The article redefines rapid system development as adopting methodologies, tools, and techniques that can introduce rapidity into the system development processes while optimizing the success factors of development. The success factors are specific to the system under development and they depend on the system, product line, organization, and customers. Some of the common success factors are return-on-investment (ROI), cost of ownership, other performance factors, and customer satisfaction. The article provides a fundamental discussion on the current rapid system development methodologies, metrics, tools, and techniques.

Evolving role of business process reengineering: a perspective of employers

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze and illustrate the needs and expectations of the industry from a newly hired engineering candidate for an entry‐level position involving business process reengineering (BPR). The paper aims to highlight the changing role and the new emerging face of business process design, analysis, and management, its relevant contents and methodologies, its new role, and emergence of a value of BPR, which has been redefined.Design/methodology/approach – The growing interest and the importance of the role of business processes in organizations have promoted the development and implementation of an undergraduate level course on BPR at Stevens Institute in 2006. This research involved a survey of some potential employers during a recent redesigning of this course. The survey collected information from the employers on how important and relevant are the topics on BPR that are covered in the course for an entry‐level BPR related position.Findings – The findings indicate a st...

Feasibility of a rapid systems engineering framework: an exploratory study

Systems Engineering (SE) has been traditionally viewed as an extremely rigorous approach for having resource intensive processes often perceived to involve bureaucratic decision making; therefore, deemed to be affordable only by large companies and government institutions. However, in recent years, the commercial industry is trying to leverage the benefits of SE by selecting the relevant aspects that apply to them and customising SE to a leaner and compressed version. This paper explores the suitability and the feasibility of rapid approaches and techniques to the existing SE processes. More specifically, this paper describes 22 techniques of rapid systems engineering (RSE) during the design and implementation processes, relevant to those processes and lessons learned. These techniques are applied to the 14 SE processes as illustrated by the SE standard – ISO 15288. An exploratory survey was developed by the authors based on the SE process activities as per ISO 15288 to evaluate application utilising a rapid approach in current projects from various industries. This paper provides conclusions to applying rapid techniques to the SE processes based on existing literature and the experiences of the projects surveyed. It concludes with a discussion of potential research projects for the evaluation of RSE.

Patterns and commonalities in rapid system development methodologies

The growing competition and customer needs have called for shorter system development time while embracing the changes and quality challenges. These system development methods, tools, techniques, and practices are collectively known as rapid system development RSD. This collection is growing and has received significant attention in the current challenging and unprecedented market conditions. The authors upon studying these RSD methods, tools, and techniques identify four basic patterns that address rapidity. These four patterns are iteration cycle, increment release, evolution, concurrency, and feedback control. This paper discusses in detail about these four patterns and their benefits.