Book Image

Systems Engineering Demystified

By : Jon Holt
Book Image

Systems Engineering Demystified

By: Jon Holt

Overview of this book

Systems engineering helps us to understand, specify, and develop complex systems, and is applied across a wide set of disciplines. As systems and their associated problems become increasingly complex in this evermore connected world, the need for more rigorous, demonstrable, and repeatable techniques also increases. Written by Professor Jon Holt – an internationally recognized systems engineering expert – this book provides a blend of technical and business aspects you need to understand in order to develop successful systems. You'll start with systems engineering basics and understand the complexity, communication, and different stakeholders' views of the system. The book then covers essential aspects of model-based systems engineering, systems, life cycles, and processes, along with techniques to develop systems. Moving on, you'll explore system models and visualization techniques, focusing on the SysML, and discover how solutions can be defined by developing effective system design, verification, and validation techniques. The book concludes by taking you through key management processes and systems engineering best practices and guidelines. By the end of this systems engineering book, you'll be able to confidently apply modern model-based systems engineering techniques to your own systems and projects.
Table of Contents (17 chapters)
1
Section 1: Introduction to Systems Engineering
4
Section 2: Systems Engineering Concepts
8
Section 3: Systems Engineering Techniques
14
Section 4: Next steps

Chapter 8: Verification and Validation

The modeling that has been introduced so far in this book has been concerned with the creation of a number of views that are related to specifying and defining the system and that contribute to delivering the successful system. Remember that the main aim of systems engineering is to deliver successful systems.

Alongside these modeling activities, it is also important to be able to test that what we have produced is correct, and this is done in two main ways, which are as follows:

  • Verification: This helps us to demonstrate that the system works. This was summed up, very famously, by Boehm by asking the question have we built the system right?"
  • Validation: This helps us to demonstrate that the system actually does what it is supposed to – that it is fit for purpose. This was again summed up neatly by Boehm by asking the question have we built the right system?

It is essential that the system can be both verified...