Archives

INCOSE Systems Engineering Journal: Best Papers of 2020

Each year, the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) selects a Best Paper award from among the papers published the previous year in Systems Engineering. The Editorial Board considers the papers in this virtual issue to be among the best from those published in 2020. This issue includes insight into the latest research and developments in systems engineering. 

Congratulations to all the authors for inclusion in this special issue, most notably those from the SERC Research network.

NOTE: Free global access to this Wiley Online Virtual Journal has been made available until September 2021

SERC TALKS: “How are Digitalization and AI Driving Improvements in Healthcare Delivery?”

DOWNLOAD SLIDES

Speaker: David Zion, Head, Systems Engineering Center of Excellence, Strategic Program Leader, Philips Healthcare | SE*******@st*****.edu?subject=SERC Talks w/ Dave Zion – June 16″>CONTACT

Abstract
This presentation examines the progression of health systems from individual diagnostic and treatment devices to connected systems and solutions. The transformation of health care delivery has changed the needs and key performance indicators that clinicians and hospital leaders use to measure success. To succeed with healthcare innovation today, new technologies must come with new business models and outcome-based incentives, aligned across all stakeholders; with collaboration based on shared objectives and risks. Hospitals want medical device providers to be integrators and brokers of technology, helping healthcare providers to embed third-party apps and devices into their workflow via a common underlying deployment platform. Patients now play a more central role in their own care decisions. Whereas the Electronic Medical Record (EMR) has created a system of record to keep track of clinical decisions and to support billing, it does not yet fulfill the need of optimally connecting staff and patients, or enabling dynamic workflows and seamless user experiences. A system of engagement, which connects and interprets patient data from various sources to support caregivers with relevant insights at the point of care will help both care givers and patients alike with better delivery of healthcare.
Bio
David Zion is currently a Strategic Program Leader at Philips Healthcare, a health technology company dedicated to improving people’s health and well-being through meaningful innovation, aiming to improve 2.5 billion lives per year by 2030, including 400 million in underserved communities. David has spent over twenty years in Ultrasound System Research and Development, leading teams in transducer design, software and hardware engineering, and program management. While leader of the global Ultrasound R&D team, David drove the significant expansion of the product offerings in Cardiology and Radiology, as well as new Point-of-Care applications, utilizing highly integrated systems design to deliver first-to-world high performance portable Ultrasound solutions. In 2018, he founded and now leads the Systems Engineering Center of Excellence at Philips, a team dedicated to deploying best practices in all aspects of the architecture, modelling, design, integration, and life-cycle management of a diverse set of products and solutions delivered to customers across the globe. Prior to working in the Philips Ultrasound business, he has worked in the Automated Test, Defense Electronics, and Telecommunications industries, delivering multiple products into production with specific focus on design-for-test and design-for-service methodologies. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT and a Master’s Degree in Engineering Economic Systems from Stanford University.

More information on all SERC Talks can be found here. Thank you!

SERC Developing Simulation Environment for Digital Engineering Education

On May 28, 2021, the Defense Acquisition University (DAU) awarded the research task “WRT-1043: DAU – Digital Engineering Simulation” to the Systems Engineering Research Center (SERC). This is a brand new, year-long effort with potential for two additional years led by Principal Investigator Dr. Nicole Hutchison, Stevens Institute of Technology, alongside co-Principal Investigators Dr. Dinesh Verma, Stevens Institute of Technology, and Dr. Peter Beling, Virginia Tech.

The task aims to develop a digital engineering simulation environment that will be incorporated into the digital engineering related curriculum at DAU. The simulation environment will balance necessary depth (varying levels of abstraction – from mission-level models to physics-based models/parametric models) and breadth (multiple domains and disciplines) to convey the richness of possibilities and the potential benefits of transforming engineering and systems engineering via digital engineering. A theme of the task is the development of principled approaches to select elements of a notional U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) weapons system and missions to be modeled and represented throughout the development lifecycle to include pulling the digital thread from concept through production and sustainment.

Nhutchison
Principal Investigator: Dr. Nicole Hutchison, Stevens Institute of Technology
View Project Page

The architecture of the simulation will provide for extensions and changes, depending on future enhancements such as a cyber security or logistics module, to show students the use of digital engineering across multiple acquisition-related disciplines and across a system’s lifecycle. These approaches will take into account significant design and operation issues that arise in the utilization of the notional weapons system, including: (1) consideration of what data is collected for input; (2) what configuration (subsystem) is fielded for data collections; and (3) what update rate is required for assessing the collected information. The approach will also consider important aspects of the impact that the digital thread can have on acquisition methodologies, including: (1) the ability to conduct tests after the system is fielded; (2) signaling of the need for system updates; and (3) early recognition of safety or cyber-related problems that require system modifications. Such capabilities are expected to grow in importance as systems increasingly rely on artificial intelligence (AI).

Furthermore, consideration of the complexity of a problem, the technological and engineering response, and the problem’s overarching context will result in simulations that recreate real-world constraints and operational scenarios. This development will leverage the research already conducted within the SERC to realize cost and schedule efficiencies and will enable the transformation of the pedagogical approach within the systems engineering educational ecosystem in general and DAU in particular to provide students, faculty, practitioners, and researchers with a digital engineering environment and asset that can support the continued transition of the DoD and the related defense industrial base. It is an aspiration of this project that this digital engineering simulation environment could provide a common touchstone for numerous aspects of the DAU curriculum into the future. In this regard, the simulation should be architected in a manner that allows future extensibility into additional disciplinary areas.

Finally, the simulation is being designed for use in DAU’s learning environment using virtual led instruction in both synchronous and asynchronous modes.

Within the SERC Research Strategy, the research directly addresses the ‘Human Capital Development’ (HCD) research area, particularly the ‘Evolving Body of Knowledge’ program area.

SERC TALKS: “How Can a Systems Approach Help Critical Civil Infrastructure Become Smarter, More Sustainable and Resilient?”

DOWNLOAD SLIDES

Speaker: Michael Salvato, Vice President, Infrastructure Advisory Practices, Mott MacDonald | SE*******@st*****.edu?subject=SERC Talks w/ Michael Salvato – April 28″>CONTACT

Abstract
Climate change, NetZero energy, and the Fourth Industrial Revolution are all game changers for infrastructure providers. Inadequate and ill-prepared infrastructure will increase the consequences of rapid urbanization, extreme weather events and digital disruption, driving up the costs to individuals, businesses, and society, reducing economic productivity and undermining the quality of life for people and plant. To build smarter, more sustainable, and resilient infrastructure, cities will need to reimage infrastructure services they provide, and arrange deeply interconnected technological, social and environmental systems to do so. Infrastructure 4.0 is comprised, not just of physical assets and digital twins, but an interconnected web of social, institutional, and ecological systems. New, complex forms of socio-technological systems are emerging that require a synthesis across traditional disciplines of engineering, information technology, environmental science, and policy. Leaders in smart, sustainable cities are embracing information and communication technologies and other means to meet the needs of populations without compromising future generations, envisioning new possibilities, and developing transformational roadmaps for a smarter, more sustainable and resilient future.
Bio
Michael A. Salvato serves as Vice President of Infrastructure Advisory Services at Mott MacDonald - a global engineering, management and development consultancy guiding clients through many of the planet’s most intricate challenges. His current responsibilities include managing the Aviation Digital Transformation Program for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. In 2018, he retired from the NY MTA as the Director and Program Executive for Enterprise Information and Asset Management with over 35 years of experience in infrastructure planning, engineering, construction, asset management, program management, economics, finance, and information systems. Michael is currently doing research on smart infrastructure with New York Academy of Sciences and am a member of the Board for Smart City New York. He was an advisor for Blueprint 2025, a National Infrastructure Plan, also, a research professor of urban infrastructure systems at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering where he helped set up the Center for Urban Science Progress program on Urban Systems and Informatics, the founding Chair of the Institute of Asset Management in the US and a member of the US delegation that produced the ISO 55000 standard for asset management.

More information on all SERC Talks can be found here. Thank you!

MBSE Applied Webinar – International Digital Enablement Week 2021

As high-tech systems become more and more complex and the number of system variants grows, the high-tech industry seeks methods and tools to manage the consequences for their business (e.g., in terms of time-to-market, risks and costs in R&D, service, manufacturing, transport and installation). Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) is an approach to systems engineering for which successful applications have been reported in dedicated industries such as defence and aerospace.

MBSE Applied

Partner: SERC & ESI
Date: April 16, 2021
Time: 8:30 AM – 11:30 AM ET

REGISTER

In the webinar, co-organised by SERC and ESI, an ESI-study team will share their insights in MBSE for the commercial high-tech industry and speakers from SERC and from the industry will share their knowledge and experience regarding practical application of MBSE in a wide range of applications. Together with its industrial and academic partners, ESI has started a study to analyze how MBSE can also be successfully applied in companies such as ASML, Canon CPP, Philips, Thermo Fisher Scientific and Vanderlande.

  • Dinesh Verma, Executive Director, Systems Engineering Research Center (SERC) – Chair
  • Brynn Watson, VP for Digital Transformation, Lockheed Martin – Keynote
  • Jacco Wesselius, Project Leader, ESI (TNO)
  • Paul Schreinemakers, Expert Systems Engineer, How2SE
  • Ryan Noguchi, Director, Space Architecture Department, Aerospace Corporation
  • Michael Vinarcik, Chief Systems Engineer and Adjunct Professor, SAIC and Detroit Mercy University
  • Vincent Capony, Systems Engineering Consultant (CEO), Geni6
  • Chris Watkins, Sr Project Manager, Advanced Flight Deck, Gulf Stream Aerospace Corporation
  • Wouter Leibbrandt, Director Science and Operations, ESI (TNO). Co-Chair

INTERNATIONAL DIGITAL ENABLEMENT WEEK 2021

All events will feature speakers from industry and universities that introduce the problem and explore solutions, followed by discussions with all participants. A detailed program introducing the lectures will be published on the website along with the confirmation and information that you will receive after registration.
Daily online sessions will be conducted during the week 13-20 April from 9:30 AM -12:30 PM ET organized by ESI (TNO) and its national and international partners High Tech NL, OFFIS/DLR, SERC and TNO.

  • Tuesday April 13, 2021: Managing your legacy – ESI
  • Wednesday April 14, 2021: Hoe volg ik mijn klant?! (Dutch) – ESI and High-Tech NL
  • Thursday April 15, 2021: Verification, Validation, Configuration – ESI and OFFIS/DLR (Germany)
  • Friday April 16, 2021: MBSE applied – ESI and SERC (USA)
  • Monday April 19, 2021: Data sharing, AI, and Digital Twinning – ESI and TNO unit ICT
  • Tuesday April 20, 2021: Reference Architecting – ESI

SERC Researchers recognized by INCOSE Best Papers of 2019

Wiley and INCOSE have collaborated to publish a special edition of the journal Systems Engineering, Best Papers of 2019
Each year, the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) selects a Best Paper award from among the papers published the previous year in Systems Engineering. The Editorial Board considers the papers in this virtual issue to be among the best from those published in 2019.
We congratulate two members from our SERC Collaborators — Dr. Donna Rhodes (MIT) and Dr. Alejandro Salado (Virginia Tech) — for being selected for this special issue:
ACCESS JOURNAL

NOTE: This issue is available online as free-to-read for the next two months.

Additional topics covered within this collection include:
  • Designing development processes related to system of systems using a modeling framework
  • Decision learning framework for architecture design decisions for complex systems
  • Model-based protocol specification
  • Network perspectives on assessing system architectures
  • Quantification of changeability levels for engineering systems
  • External patterns of verification strategies.

ABOUT Systems Engineering:
The journal Systems Engineering aims to publish manuscripts on topics related to the discipline of Systems Engineering. The journal welcomes original submissions on the conceptualization, design, implementation, operation, sustainment, and recycling, reuse, and retirement of technologically enabled systems that satisfy stakeholder needs throughout the lifecycle. This includes products and services in the private sector, as well as defense and public infrastructures and socio-technical systems whose precise boundaries are often challenging to define.