Placement of the Systems Engineering (SE) Organization within an Aerospace Firm

This paper considers the role of SE, the desired characteristics of a Systems Engineer, and effective placement of SE within a typical organization. After presenting some possible organizational structures, it argues that SE is best placed between Program Management (PM) and the more traditional hard engineering departments. This structure best allows SE to function as the glue that blends the political requirements of PM with the technical ones of the classical engineering areas. In this placement, SE is best positioned to facilitate a truly integrated view of the program and bring appropriate talent from other organizations to bare considering the total life cycle of the system. The paper closes with a brief examination of some of the past and current work on the value of SE.