Optimized Portfolio Digital Engineering Transformation

This report provides an assessment of the current state and future trajectory of digital engineering (DE) transformation and systems engineering (SE), with a focus on requirements engineering (RE) methods, infrastructure, and workforce transformation through the year 2035. The work builds upon the Department of Defense’s (DoD) DE initiatives and responds to the imperative for agile, resilient, and mission aligned acquisition practices in an era of accelerating technological change.

Key Findings. While progress has been made in adopting DE frameworks and tools; legacy systems, entrenched cultural practices, and workforce skill gaps remain major obstacles. Current RE practices are based on human expertise and document-driven processes, which lead to inefficiencies, rework, and schedule and cost overruns. Although commercial tools provide partial automation, they lack SE rigor and struggle with trustworthiness at scale. Looking forward, RE is projected to evolve toward dynamic, context-aware, model-based, and Artificial Intelligence (AI)- assisted methods, where executable requirements and mathematical formalisms reside in digital threads that converge into adaptive and continuously validated systems.