ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS ENGINEERING: A CONCEPTUAL MODEL

The conceptual and theoretical basis of systems engineering and project management are still in their early days. For example, almost all literature written in recent years in these areas tend to assume that all projects are fundamentally similar and their management consists of a universal set of functions and activities. Systems engineering books usually describe a system's lifecycle (phases) and typical systems engineering process activities along these phases. In practice however, there are salient differences among systems according to size, industry, customer type, contractor's organization, level of technology and other parameters. Based on an exploratory, on-going field study we suggest in this paper a conceptual, two dimensional framework for the classification of projects and systems and show how this framework can be used to distinguish among systems engineering styles and practices for various types of engineering projects. Projects are classified according to their level of technological uncertainty at the moment of project initiation and their system scope which is their location on a hierarchy of systems and subsystems. The technological uncertainty dimension is divided into: low-tech, medium-tech, high-tech, and, super high-tech projects. System scope is divided into: assembly, system and array projects. Considerable differences were found among systems engineering methods along each one of the model's axes. Differences were also observed for a simultaneous change in both dimensions.