System Engineering Program Management

Systems Engineering has become synonymous with the office of the Chief Engineer or Technical Director throughout the Department of Defense (DOD). This recognizes the breadth of influence that system level attributes have on the ultimate suitability and effectiveness of the completed system. Individual engineering disciplines require detailed understanding which is narrowly focused to optimize the subsystem performance. As subsystems interact, interface control documents (ICDs) define these interactions and serve to stimulate communication across functional disciplines. In this role, ICDs are inherently limited to one-on-one or one-on-few interactions and do not capture the nature of a fully integrated system. The aggregate of subsystem specifications and associated ICDs assist in managing communications between when building the complete system.