The System of Systems Engineering Collaborators Information Exchange (SoSECIE) is a web-based seminar series organized by the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (SE) in association with the National Defense Industrial Associations’s SoS Engineering committee. The goal of this series is to provide guidance, education and training for SoS and dissemination of engineering best practices within the government, military, contractors, academia and International partners.

The webinar will be held on Tuesday, November 6th from 11 am-12 pm ET.

Speaker: Mr. Francis McCafferty

Title: Model-Based Systems of Systems Engineering

Abstract: 

To achieve better value for Department of Defense (DoD) weapon systems, acquisition paradigms need to change from today’s reliance on a single large integrator performing as the central focus of all acquisition, design, production, and support to a distributed design allowing specialty and niche engineering companies to provide their products as part of a system of systems (SoS). An expanded industrial base enables competition at lower assembly levels and may lead to increased SoS performance at a lower cost. This presentation will demonstrate distributed SoS models captured in a model-based systems engineering (MBSE) tool, including a discussion of how the systems engineer can manage the SoS challenge while maintaining design integrity, consistency, and confidentiality as appropriate. An SoS approach considers lower assembly units as systems, all of which detailed in a systems engineering model provide the processes, methodology, and engineering rigor to build the SoS. At successful completion of an SoS, the government program office controls the system and subsystem interfaces and owns the systems engineering architecture, the requirements with rationale, and the allocated functionality. A direct extension of SoS planning and implementation is the support of mission engineering. Current systems are architected and designed to meet today’s explicit requirements. Tomorrow’s systems will need to adjust, add, and eliminate missions in much shorter time frames. How the mission is achieved is the focus of the design space. Successful systems engineering prepositions upgradability and obsolescence safeguards.

Bio: 

Mr. Francis McCafferty is a practicing principal systems engineer with more than 30 years of experience. He was an early pioneer applying MBSE, performing as the GE Era Strategic Defense Initiative requirements manager. He has also led numerous project architecture development efforts for commercial, U.S., and foreign defense projects.

For more information, contact the SoSECIE Webinar Coordinator to be added to the e-mail list for future announcements, to obtain access instructions, or to make suggestions for future presentation topics.