About the Book

The Systems Engineering Research Center (SERC) was established in the Fall of 2008 as a government-designated University Affiliated Research Center (UARC). The SERC has produced 15 years of research, focused on an updated systems engineering toolkit (methods, tools, and practices) for the complex cyber-physical systems of today and tomorrow. The principal sponsor of the SERC is the Office of the Under-Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering in the U.S. Department of Defense. A unique governance element of the SERC is its establishment as a national network of preeminent universities in the United States focused on systems research.

The impact of the SERC on the state of systems engineering practice and education has been profound. Examples include the Body of Knowledge for Systems Engineering (SEBoK) – the most popular systems engineering website in the world with over 50,000 unique visitors every month; GRCSE – the first graduate reference curriculum for systems engineering; the Mission-Aware Security methodology for assessing system architectures for cyber-resilience; and a diversity of research projects to support the transition of digital engineering from strategy into practice including advanced tradespace analysis methods, modeling methods for digital project workflows, digital engineering measurement methods, and digital engineering competencies. Therein lies the focus of this book – translating some of the mature research inspired by the SERC into a compendium of chapters, organized into topical clusters, for the benefit of practicing engineers in industry and government.

This book features a total of 41 chapters, organized into eight topical clusters. Each of these chapter clusters was organized and edited by the following cluster leaders: Mark Blackburn, Nicole Hutchison, and Tom McDermott of Stevens Institute of Technology; Dan DeLaurentis of Purdue University; Val Sitterle of Georgia Tech Research Institute; and Jon Wade of the University of California – San Diego.