People who can effectively lead the implementation of the information technology, commercial and military systems acquisition and development process within the cost and schedule constraints are scarce. These people are becoming known as systems engineers and the approach they use is systems engineering. However, there is no generally accepted definition of systems engineering, nor is there a generally accepted body of knowledge for systems engineering. Mixing ingredients from systems engineering (Beer, Hall, Jackson, Checkland etc.), management (Taylor, Ford, Drucker, Peters, Hammer and Champy etc.), and Quality (Deming, Juran and Crosby etc.), together with some original thoughts, this book takes you on an exploratory journey, and, by documenting the application of systems thinking to the problem of understanding systems engineering, provides you with a unique perspective for understanding systems engineering and management and how they relate to each other.
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Joseph Kasser combines knowledge of systems engineering, technology, management and educational pedagogy. Having been a practicing systems engineer and engineering manager since 1970 in the USA, Israel, and Australia he brought a wealth of experience and a unique perspective to academia in 1997. He has since become internationally recognised as one of the top systems engineering academics in the world.
He is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) and an INCOSE Fellow. He is the author of "A Framework for Understanding Systems Engineering", "Applying Total Quality Management to Systems Engineering" and many INCOSE symposia papers. He is a recipient of NASA's Manned Space Flight Awareness Award (Silver Snoopy) for quality and technical excellence for performing and directing systems engineering and the recipient of many other awards, plaques and letters of commendation and appreciation.
He holds a Doctor of Science in Engineering Management from The George Washington University, is a Certified Manager and a certified member of the Association for Learning Technology. He gave up his positions as a Deputy Director and DSTO Associate Research Professor at the Systems Engineering and Evaluation Centre at the University of South Australia in early 2007 to move back to the UK to develop the world's first immersion course in systems engineering as a Leverhulme Visiting Professor at Cranfield University.
He is an INCOSE Ambassador and also served as the initial president of INCOSE Australia and as a Region VI Representative to the INCOSE Member Board. He is currently a principal at the Right Requirement Ltd. in the UK and a Visiting Associate Professor at the National University of Singapore.
He is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) and an INCOSE Fellow. He is the author of "A Framework for Understanding Systems Engineering", "Applying Total Quality Management to Systems Engineering" and many INCOSE symposia papers. He is a recipient of NASA's Manned Space Flight Awareness Award (Silver Snoopy) for quality and technical excellence for performing and directing systems engineering and the recipient of many other awards, plaques and letters of commendation and appreciation.
He holds a Doctor of Science in Engineering Management from The George Washington University, is a Certified Manager and a certified member of the Association for Learning Technology. He gave up his positions as a Deputy Director and DSTO Associate Research Professor at the Systems Engineering and Evaluation Centre at the University of South Australia in early 2007 to move back to the UK to develop the world's first immersion course in systems engineering as a Leverhulme Visiting Professor at Cranfield University.
He is an INCOSE Ambassador and also served as the initial president of INCOSE Australia and as a Region VI Representative to the INCOSE Member Board. He is currently a principal at the Right Requirement Ltd. in the UK and a Visiting Associate Professor at the National University of Singapore.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good reference for SE's, not a good text for newbies,
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This review is from: A Framework for Understanding Systems Engineering (Paperback)
I have been a practicing systems engineer for several years, ever since I joined my employer's Systems Engineering division. Membership in the division is the only qualification I have. I started as an electronics engineer. I had quite a bit of schooling in electronics engineering, but I had none in systems engineering, so I wasn't really sure what a systems engineer was. I did some requirements, scheduling, work-flow, haggling with sub-contractors, and so on. But some other people in the division seemed to be mostly managers, others technical advisors, yet others spent all their time in the lab. Looking for a little clarity, I got this book.
Dr. Kasser reassures me that the reason I wasn't sure on this matter was that the profession as a whole is unsure. It is still feeling its way toward a satisfactory definition of systems engineering and trying to distill a suitably definitive body of knowledge. Several chapters in the book address this issue (ch, 1, 11, 14, and 20), and chapter 11, particularly, develops the "2-D Hitchens-Kasser-Massie" framework, which I found useful because I was able to put all of my systems engineering activities, and also those of my colleages, into some quadrant or other of the knowledge space. Providing insight into the ongoing professional debate among system engineers is one of the book's better accomplishments. Other chapters discuss particular aspects of a systems engineer's work, like requirements development and complexity management, but while these are reasonably good outlines in themselves, they really don't cohere into a book. The organization is not quite random, but you wonder when you finish this thing why, for example, all those chapters on the systems engineering body of knowledge (1, 11, 14, and 20 again) aren't all in one section. And why isn't chapter 13, "Managing Systems of Systems," linked somehow to chapter 17, "Reducing and Managing Complexity," rather than being separated from it by chapters on object-oriented requirements? Because of this seeming chaotic organization, the book serves better as a reference than as a text book, which you might expect to proceed sequentially, building subsequent material on its predecessors. The book is also chock full of copy-edit errors. Sometimes when I revise a text, I insert words in the wrong order, neglect to harmonize verb tense, and so on, so that some sentences contain artifacts of two or more versions. When I'm lucky I catch these errors before pushing the "send" button. Too many of these sorts of things have gotten past the editor in this book, and so we end up with sentences like, "The demand for systems engineers...is growing around the world demand" (p. 11-1). Typos abound as well, "i.e." is used when clearly "e.g." is meant (e.g., p. 10-5), and in several chapters (6, 12, 13, and 20) the page numbering is wrong. Human understanding is, fortunately, robust to copy-edit errors, but human attention is distracted by them, and human nature occasionally irked. This book is substantially less expensive than any formal text on systems engineering, and for systems engineers, who from time to time also do cost-benefit analyses, this is a plus. So for the money, this is an OK reference, and it did, after all, answer my core question about what systems engineering aspired to be.
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Balance: Practical and Theoretical Systems Engineering,
By Rafael C. Azevedo "PMP Project Manager, MSc. ... (SJCampos, São Paulo, Brazil) - See all my reviews
This review is from: A Framework for Understanding Systems Engineering (Paperback)
I've got quite a few books on Systems Engineering, and this is one of the few that balances theoretical and practical views (especially important for us playing a role on both fields - academia and industry).
It has a good breath but does not go deep enough on each topic (although it presents an extensive list of references), so I'd recommend it as a fist read in Systems Engineering. Presents some topics such as flexible and non-flexible systems, Systems of Systems, Object Orientation for SE, as well as Complexity and how to deal with it, subjects of increasing interest for students, engineers and managers alike. Also, has some examples on real engineering projects, connecting theory with the "real-world". The only thing that could have been better are i) its finishing and ii) its pictures. To sum up: it fulfils its goals... helps one understand SE. Hope this helps!
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defence capability, capability development, architecting function, automatically maintain statistics, understanding systems engineering, poor requirements engineering, systems engineering paradigm, traditional systems engineering, highest priority requirements, reporting milestone, technical breadth, acquisition paradigm, waterfall methodology, cognitive filters, artificial complexity, systems engineering process, adjacent systems, organizational engineering, adaptive improvements, development contractor, missing capability, paid scholars Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
System of Systems, Use Cases, Anticipatory Testing, Roles Rectangle, Systems of Systems, Van Vliet, Scientific Management, University of South Australia, Battle of Britain, Build Zero, The Quality Assurance Team, Henry Ford, Cobb's Paradox, Heath Robinson, Rube Goldberg, Product Layer Life-cycle, Product Process Time Figure, Socio-Economic Layer, Cost Estimation, Spring Symposium, Supply Chain Layer Layer, Cataract Methodology, Categorized Requirements Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
defence capability, capability development, architecting function, automatically maintain statistics, understanding systems engineering, poor requirements engineering, systems engineering paradigm, traditional systems engineering, highest priority requirements, reporting milestone, technical breadth, acquisition paradigm, waterfall methodology, cognitive filters, artificial complexity, systems engineering process, adjacent systems, organizational engineering, adaptive improvements, development contractor, missing capability, paid scholars Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
System of Systems, Use Cases, Anticipatory Testing, Roles Rectangle, Systems of Systems, Van Vliet, Scientific Management, University of South Australia, Battle of Britain, Build Zero, The Quality Assurance Team, Henry Ford, Cobb's Paradox, Heath Robinson, Rube Goldberg, Product Layer Life-cycle, Product Process Time Figure, Socio-Economic Layer, Cost Estimation, Spring Symposium, Supply Chain Layer Layer, Cataract Methodology, Categorized Requirements Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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