Systems Engineering at Purdue: A work in progress

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Systems Engineering at Purdue A work in progress

• 03 April 2008 at USC
• CESUN Meetings Day 2 - Panel Discussion
• prepared by Prof. Bill Crossley
  (crossley_at_purdue.edu)School of Aeronautics and
  Astronautics
• Chair of System of Systems Signature Area
• and Prof. Vince Duffy (duffy_at_purdue.edu)
• School of Industrial Engineering Ag. Bio. Eng.
  
• Regenstrief Center for Healthcare Engineering

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Recent Purdue SE discussion / thinking
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Purdue Activities Related to Systems Engineering

• System of Systems signature area
• Trans-disciplinary research initiative
  originated by AAE faculty member
• College-level, involves faculty in several
  schools
• AAE Aerospace Systems area
• Research and curriculum for design, development,
  operation of aerospace systems (aircraft,
  spacecraft, etc.)
• Within AAE involves plans of study, shared
  research interests, PhD qualifying examination
• Systems Engineering education
• Educational support to SoS research
• Address external stakeholder needs for graduate
  education in SE
• Could be college-level, currently AAE-led,
  support offered from ProEd

AAE Aerospace Systems area
System of Systems signature area
Systems Engineering education
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Stakeholder / Customer Push for SE

• Industry and government employers looking for
  systems engineers
• Aerospace / defense organizations
• Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General
  Motors, BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce, GE Aircraft
  Engines, NASA, USAF
• Other engineering / product development
  companies
• Cummins, General Motors, International Truck
• Student interest developing around new course
  offerings
• Purdue Alumni at companies are earning graduate
  SE degrees from other universities
• Crossroads of America (IN / IL) chapter of INCOSE
  actively engaging Purdue have twice hosted
  mini-conference on campus
• Involvement with Lean Aerospace Initiative
  highlights need for systems engineering
• Student interest in systems engineering topics
  and in academic programs linked to SoS signature
  area

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Plans for SE Academics at Purdue

• Interactions to gain best practices and to see
  potential models with
• Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Cummins, NASA
• Air Force Systems Engineering Center of
  Excellence
• CESUN
• AERO (Aerospace Education, Research, Operations)
  Institute in Palmdale, CA
• Center of Excellence in Systems Engineering at
  Indiana-Purdue Ft. Wayne
• Purdue Engineering Professional Education (ProEd)
• Offers graduate courses, non-thesis MSE degrees
  to distance-learning students
• Fall 2007, offered GRAD 597N Introduction to
  Systems Engineering
• Instructor, Dr. Dan Surber, Principal Engineer of
  Systems Engineering and Systems Safety
  Engineering Division at Raytheon Technical
  Services, Indianapolis, IN
• Taught using studio facility at IUPUI in
  Indianapolis
• Available only to distance-learning students for
  Fall 07 intend to have available for on-campus
  West Lafayette students Fall 09
• New Engineering Management and Leadership MSE
  degree specialization
• Plans of study will contain 9 credits of systems
  engineering topics
• Common SE courses to support ProEd MSE
  specialization and on-campus area of concentration

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Options for SE Academics at Purdue

• Three major options
• Area of concentration
• Students earn MS degree from traditional
  engineering program
• Certificate
• Post-baccalaureate course work, fewer credits
  than MS degree
• MS degree in Systems Engineering
• Non-thesis option likely thesis option possible
• Prevailing attitudes favor Graduate Area of
  Concentration in SE
• Most Purdue on-campus students have little
  previous work experience
• Often cited as necessary prerequisite for
  graduate degree in Systems Engineering
• Re-emphasized in discussions with Mike Griffin,
  NASA Administrator
• Comparative ease of implementation
• No new school or department
• No (or few) new additional faculty
• Several existing Areas of Concentration to
  provide template

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Potential Graduate Area of Concentration

• Students earn graduate degree from existing
  school
• For example, MS AAE, MS CE, MS ME, etc.
• Total of 30 credits (all course work, if
  non-thesis option 21 credits course work with
  thesis option)
• Systems Engineering area of concentration appears
  on transcript
• Students take three to four SE courses (nine to
  12 credits) from an approved list
• Choose from a core list covering SE topics and
  a related list with discipline-specific topics
• Need to leverage GRAD 597N Introduction to
  Systems Engineering course as a core course
• Several precedents exist for this
• Software Engineering - cooperation between
  Computer Science and Engineering (across
  Colleges) one of the most visible

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Potential Certificate Program

• Post-graduate studies resulting in an awarded
  certificate
• 12 or 15 credits (four or five courses) in
  Systems Engineering
• Courses from same list of courses that could be
  used in area of concentration (at graduate school
  level, not short courses)
• Precedents exist for this
• Digital Signal Processing from EE, as an example
• Quality Engineering program under development as
  interdisciplinary
• Purdue Engineering Professional Education (ProEd)
  helping to coordinate new certificates
• Enables off-campus students to pursue advanced
  study
• A lower-commitment than direct entry in MS program

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Graduate Degree in Systems Engineering

• Would require an entire SE curriculum
• 30 course credits for MS non-thesis, 21 for MS
  thesis option
• Likely need several new courses
• Faculty needed to serve as advisory committee
  chairs and members
• Thesis topics in SE maybe more difficult to
  define
• Should include some sort of SE practice / case
  study / similar as formal part of program
• Somewhat more challenging to implement
• New faculty likely needed
• New program or department needed

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SE-related Courses on Campus

• Many engineering faculty have teaching and
  research interests aligned with systems
  engineering
• Systems engineering-related courses are currently
  available on campus
• Predominately graduate (dual 500) level courses
• Focus is usually discipline-specific (e.g.
  aerospace systems, civil engineering systems)
• Purdue strengths in operations research,
  optimization, systems modeling and analyses

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A Sampling of Current SE-relevant Courses

• AAE 550 Multidisciplinary Design Optimization
• Basics of numerical optimization. Calculus-based
  techniques for univariate and multivariate
  optimization. Constrained and unconstrained
  optimization methods. Global optimization
  methods. Multi-objective optimization. Recent
  multidisciplinary design optimization.
• Applications of methods and techniques to
  representative engineering problems, culminating
  in a final project.
• AAE 551 Design Theory and Methods for Aerospace
  Systems
• Introduction to design theory, aerospace design
  process, design specification and requirements,
  concept generation and selection, design
  decomposition, improving designs, process design,
  concurrent engineering, and design for X.
• Projects allow for application and analysis of
  design methods.

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A Sampling of Current SE-relevant Courses

• CE 594 Transportation Systems Analysis
• Planning, design, operation, and management of
  transportation systems. Aims to impart a systems
  perspective to transportation problems.
• Incorporates concepts from economics,
  engineering, operations research, management,
  psychology, and public policy analysis.
• CE 660 Demand Analysis And Forecasting
• Analysis and forecasting of demand for facilities
  and services, for use in the planning, design,
  and operations of transportation systems.
  Emphasis on the collection and analysis of survey
  data for demand model development.
• Covers alternative sample designs, individual
  choice theories, probabilistic discrete choice
  models, estimation of disaggregate and aggregate
  models, and aggregate forecasting methods and
  simulation.

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A Sampling of Current SE-relevant Courses

• ME 553 Product and Process Design
• Principles of product and process development to
  produce a marketable product, a preliminary
  business strategy and prototype.
• Team-based project course A market analysis,
  design parameters, manufacturing prototype plan,
  production process plan, and a business strategy
  will be developed by project team.
• ME 557 Design for Manufacture
• Topics include the product development cycle,
  manufacturing process selection, tolerancing,
  quality function deployment (QFD), design for
  assembly (DFA), quality control techniques,
  Taguchi's robust design methodology, life cycle
  engineering, and reliability.
• Laboratory projects in the area of tolerancing,
  assembly, and manufacturability are included.

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A Sampling of Current SE-relevant Courses

• ME 571 Reliability Based Design
• Basic concepts of probability and random
  variables. Time-dependent reliability models.
  Strength-based reliability and interference
  theory. Weakest-link and fail-safe systems.
  Extremal distributions. Monte Carlo methods.
  Maintainability and availability. Fault tree
  analysis. Quality control and reliability.
• Relevant courses available from other departments
  / schools include (but are not limited to)
• ECE computer systems, power systems, distributed
  systems
• IE operations research
• MGMT new product design, total quality management

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A Sampling of Current SE-relevant Courses

• IE 656A Design of IT Systems
• Research seminar providing understanding of
  human-computer interaction theory and research
  methodologies with emphasis on human factors for
  systems with a variety of industrial application.
  
• IE656B Modeling Healthcare Systems
• Research seminar providing bridge between human
  factors, systems and healthcare for improved
  clinical performance, healthcare delivery and
  patient safety systems.
• IE656C Digital Human Modeling
• Research seminar focused on advancing
  computer-aided engineering tools to provide
  visualization and math/science that enable human
  factors and ergonomics considerations earlier in
  the design process.
• Each of the IE656 courses is focused on helping
  graduate students learn the research process.

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Next Steps for Purdue SE

• Purdue participants to move forward with
  formalizing and gaining approval for Systems
  Engineering area of concentration
• Formalize SE curriculum/ academic advisory
  council
• Analog to school industrial advisory council
• Industry and government SE experts to help craft
  programs, provide continuous improvement
• Leverage ProEds Introduction to Systems
  Engineering course
• Serve as core course, independent of specific
  disciplines
• Facilitate on-campus student enrollment
• Identify opportunities for case study and SE
  practice as part of academic studies
• Requires input and collaboration from industry /
  government advisory council and other partners

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Continue cooperation to better serve Ph.D.
program development

• Internally consider Branding what level of
  recognition is needed now (vs. what may happen
  more naturally with time)
• what may quicken that impact (eg. rankings
  funding success of junior faculty hires
  continued communication/support between and
  within consider ES/SE in ENGR 2020 education
  initiatives)
• Opportunities to share experience with new AAE
  home- building developed for cross-disciplinary
  engineering and research Neil Armstrong Hall of
  Engineering
• Continue hiring/recruiting faculty across
  Engineering Schools (depts). Including AAE,
  Civil, Industrial Eng.
• https//engineering.purdue.edu/Engr/
• SoS has hired 2 faculty over the last 3 years
  interviewing now - will hire this 1 year 2 in
  coming 2-4 years.
• IE alone has 9 faculty positions remaining (hired
  3 in the past year interviewed 10 this semester
  will likely hire 3 this year)
• Head Search - Industrial Engineering - position
  announcement

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ES/SE Program Development Challenges

• At M.S. level
• there are obvious new program opportunities to
  meet external demand
• however, junior faculty time spent in new course
  prep for grad level courses that primarily have
  non-research track students can be (justifiably)
  questioned by senior faculty concerned about long
  term School/College interests
• At Ph.D. level
• New faculty hires require awareness among
  existing faculty about potential impact of
  multi-disciplinary trans-disciplinary and/or
  cross-disciplinary research
• A blending of research cultures (across
  disciplines) and faculty generations is
  occurring
• consideration of breadth vs. depth can be
  supported by faculty cooperation yet, junior
  faculty may be evaluated somewhat by their
  ability to develop their research portfolios more
  independently
• continual balancing of preconceived notions of
  need within the College with perspectives on
  excellence eg. know it when you see it.