Synergy/Linkage of Software with Systems Engineering - Published by Ojas Khade

What's actually Systems Engineering?

Systems engineering is an interdisciplinary field of engineering that focuses on how to design and manage complex engineering projects over their lifecycles. Basically, a technique of using knowledge from various branches of engineering and science to introduce technological innovations into the planning and development stages of a system.

In general, a systems engineering approach is likely to differ from a conventional design approach by exhibiting increased generality in its basic logical framework and increased concern with the fundamental objectives to be achieved. Thus, at each stage the systems engineer is likely to ask both why and how, rather than merely how.

Here's a short video which would make you understand this concept better - 

How does this help Software Developers?

Architecture combines and adapts effective design patterns and balances business goals and mission goals with system design to maintain focus on those goals. As developers go through the frequent sprints and other short-term cycles that characterize modern system development, an architectural framework keeps developers focused on what is most important to the system.This common modeling environment improves the ability to analyze the system and reduces the likelihood that defects will be injected.

The Cycle [Fig. SDLC] gives us a perfect idea as to how do the systems and their development go hand in hand.

Fig. SDLC

As software factories increase developer productivity, developers have more powerful tools to do their jobs well and creatively and to test their work frequently. As the prevalence of tooling developed by the commercial software industry is being successfully applied in other domains, the systems engineering community is investigating what aspects of this automatic tooling and continuous integration and delivery can be brought into the CPS and hardware side of systems.

For example, we create a hardware project using various equipments and tools(which could be expensive) and then we test it. If it fails, both the time and money are wasted. But if we build and test the prototype in a virtual environment using softwares like TinkerCAD/Matlab, we can make the desired changes in our system and test it as many times as we want. Then after all the tests, make the actual working model. This is way more effective than the first approach. Here, software plays a crucial role. 

The videos here show some applications -

Future Scope -

Developing the systems of the future will require the expertise that currently resides within and beyond the separate disciplines of systems engineering and software engineering. 

Without software, there is no new capability, and without good systems engineering, integration is problematic, and the delivered system may not meet customer needs.

Synergy and collaboration between systems engineering and software engineering are essential and problems of the future will require still more synergy among those disciplines and others such as computer science and human-centered design.

So, I hope this blog helped you understand the concept of the role and interdependency of software and systems engineering.

Thanks for the READ!!

Bibliography -

1. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327073719_INCOSE_Working_Group_Addresses_System_and_Software_Interfaces

 

2. https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-software-engineering-process

 

3. https://insights.sei.cmu.edu/blog/systems-engineering-and-software-engineering-collaborating-for-the-smart-systems-of-the-future/