Modern Systems Engineering Addressing Product Life-cycle Engineering (PLE) Supported by Product Life-cycle Management (PLM)

Systems engineering requires an interdisciplinary approach and means for enabling the realization and deployment of successful systems. Systems engineers deal with abstract systems, and rely on other functional engineering disciplines to design and deliver the tangible products that are the realization of those systems. The systems engineering effort spans the whole system lifecycle. Systems engineering focuses on defining customer needs and required functionality early in the development cycle, documenting requirements, then proceeding with design synthesis and system validation while considering the complete problem. Therefore, systems engineers and functional engineers perform the necessary activities for conducting Product Lifecycle Engineering (PLE). Product lifecycle management (PLM) is the process of managing the entire lifecycle of a product from its conception, through design and manufacture, to service and disposal1. It is one of the four cornerstones of a corporation’s_information technology structure. All companies need to manage communications and information with their customers (CRM-Customer Relationship Management) and their suppliers (SCM-Supply Chain Management) and the resources within the enterprise (ERP-Enterprise Resource Planning). PLM is more to do with managing descriptions and properties of a product through its development and useful life, mainly from a business/engineering point of view. PLM is to do with the life of a product in the market with respect to business/commercial costs and sales measures. PLM is the title also commonly applied to a Product and Portfolio Management (PPM), Product Design (CAx), Manufacturing Planning (MPM), and Product Data Management. Thus, a modern systems engineering approach must address Product Lifecycle Engineering (PLE) and be supported by PLM. At Georgia Tech in its graduate program in Aerospace Systems Design and in the Center for Aerospace Systems Engineering (CASE) this modern systems engineering approach is being developed and implemented. This paper will describe this modern systems engineering approach and give an example of its application.