Talk:Systems engineering/Archive 3

Systems Engineering's lead paragraph

The first remark is copied here from the user talk:Mdd

I don't have the time to quibble over the sentence that you inserted before the INCOSE definition – however, if you would do a textual analysis (“tekstverklaring”) on this single sentence of 18 words, you would find at least three issues. Cheers. -- Iterator12n ^Talk 03:12, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand what you mean with this textual analysis, and what issues it should bring. I do know however the criteria I used to develop this sentence:

1. This sentence should be not to short and not to long
2. It should focus on a general audience
3. It should give a general description
4. It should introduce the most basic terms, in this case: interdisciplinary, field of engineering, development, organization, complex, artificial and systems.

These are the arguments I generally use in all systems articles... and I have rephrased quit al lot of these article.

No if you want to rephrase the sentence here with these same words and criteria, be my guest. If you don't agree on these criterea, let me know here? -- Mdd (talk) 13:34, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Ps. I would prefer a semantical analysis (?) around the question: Is or isn't SE interdisciplinary? a field of engineering? focusing on development? focusing on organization? an about complex, artificial and systems?

As examplified here, people are baffled by the text in this article, especially the lead-text. The INCOSE definition fail to explain SE using concepts people are familiar with, while ending with a description that could fit nearly any modern design process. I've tried writing a new lead-text that to me as an outsider capture the basic concept as quickly as possible. EverGreg (talk) 14:05, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I notices you changed the lead sentence. Now I added the essentials, you missed, but I am going to take a second look at it. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 14:54, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! EverGreg (talk) 15:06, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Removed "distinguish|engineering systems" tag

I removed this tag for three reasons:

1. It draw's unneccecary attention away from the introduction of the article itselve
2. The engineering systems tells me the two are related.
3. And because of this the meaning this message becomes realy unclear and confusing.

But maybe I am mistaken here. So I could use some feed back here. -- Mdd (talk) 16:40, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I added the engineering systems link because the title of that article and this one are so similar that they could easily be confused. Also, the difference between the two concepts is not well expressed on the engineering systems article and is not mentioned at all on the systems engineering article. For this reason, I am not totally convinced that these concepts are separate. A merge between the two articles may be a possibility, but a distinguishing link both articles is the bare minimum connection.

Neelix (talk) 19:29, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I agree on the last thing you mention, and added the link in the "see also" section. In the main time we proposed to change the name of the engineering systems article. -- Mdd (talk) 19:37, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Name of engineering systems article returned to its original form as MIT Engineering Systems Division. MIT is promoting the concept of "engineering systems" as a new distinction from "systems engineering" but I have not seen it in any other context. Until this concept is notable in its own right, it should remain a feature of MIT. ComputerGeezer (talk) 18:03, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

List of System Analysis Tools and techniques

I would like to see a good list of system analysis tools and techniques. This would include:

Flowchart, Venn diagram, Decision Table, Decision Tree, Decision Matrix, Matrix – many kinds, Cause, effect diagram,

Along with others I can’t think of. Where should this best appear? Should it be a section in this article or a separate list? What tools and techniques should be added? Thanks!--Lbeaumont (talk) 12:42, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Removed "Human-centered engineering"

I removed the following description:

Leveraging interdisciplinary methods, including those from engineering psychology, industrial engineering, ergonomics, systems engineering, user interface design, software usability, cognitive engineering and cognitive psychology, to enhance the relationship or fit between humans and work environments can be thought of as human-centered engineering (HCE). The objectives of HCE are to understand human skills and knowledge, study and analyze work environments, design better interactions between human and technology, and engineer better teams and organizations. The underlying intention is to prepare and enable humans to excel at their work. The use of models within HCE, both descriptive and executable, provides a framework to analyze work processes and identify opportunities and means for performance enhancement. Within this context there is a focus on the work environment as changeable and a source of constraints on human performance.

The term and description here and now seems like a first introduction in Wikipedia. Now this article is not the place to give such a first introduction. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 15:18, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Removed extra definiton sentence

I undid the addition of the following sentence in the middle of the first paragraph:

Systems encompasses hardware and software thus system engineering is the discipline of analyzing, designing, implementing, testing, fielding, and sustaining hardware, software, and/or their integration.

It is not part of the INCOSE definition, so it does not match the reference at the end of the paragraph. If it is needed, it should be added separately from the INCOSE definition and cited appropriately. ComputerGeezer (talk) 20:32, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree, thanks. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 21:12, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

A new Systems Engineering template

I created a new Systems Engineering template to outline the field of systems engineering. Seee Template:Systems Engineering Now this is just a first design. I could use some more ideas here, thank you. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 22:20, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Mdd, I think thís style of info box or thát style is a matter of taste. In the same manner that I liked the old-style software engineering box better than your new one, I’m not in favor of this new-style systems engineering box. Now about the substance… I think it speaks to the immaturity of the systems engineering discipline that in all these years systems engineering hasn’t done a good job (a job whose outcomes would be generally accepted, inside and outside the discipline) on itself. For example, from systems engineering you may expect a (logical, physical, conceptual, functional, anything) breakdown of the system of interest, whatever that system of interest is – ok, what is the generally accepted breakdown of the systems engineering discipline?? It wouldn’t take a whole lot of work to line up reliable sources for ten fundamentally-different breakdowns of the field of systems engineering. Part of the trouble is the lack of consensus regarding definitions –for the definition problem in general, see the recent discussion you got in regarding “development”, development on the same level as “engineering” vs. development as one part of engineering among many other parts. Where a discipline lacks broad consensus, I think it’s impossible to come up with a consensus article in WP; if there would be consensus on the article, it would only be among the editors who happen to chime in around a certain time. It’s hard to create something out of little. Should you stop trying? Absolutely not! But also, the WP article should not convey a message that the systems engineering of systems engineering (“the meta systems engineering”) is done and finished – if it did, it would be a false message. HTH -- Iterator12n ^Talk 03:16, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

I wonder if there is an misunderstanding here. You are speaking about the "old-style software engineering box"? I wonder what you mean? Do you mean the box of definitions in the current article? Well then I have news for you. This template is not to replace this box of definitions. It is a template to add on the bottum of all systems engineering articles. I added the template to almost all article listed, see here.

Now I am also not sure what you mean with the "immaturity of the systems engineering discipline" and the rest of your story. I do know that the current template is "immature" and the Wikipedia representation of systems engineering is "immature". I have been improving articles for quite some time, and I am still amazed how much there is to improve, and how much black spots there are. Creating a template like this is a way to determine these black spots. It has raised some mayor questions:

• What are the fields of SE? The steps of the SE process? The basic SE concepts? The basic SE tools? The most important systems engineers? And the related fields?

At the moment I started this template yesterday I could only give a partial answer. I hope together we can think of some more answers here.

-- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 09:17, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Yours sounds like original work - specifically, making a choice! among a slew of citable (but mutually unaligned) sources. -- Iterator12n ^Talk 14:19, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

In every article, list and template choices have to be made based on the state of the art. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 15:34, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

That's my point, by being highly selective don't make the state of the art of systems engineering look better than it is. Over and out. -- Iterator12n ^Talk 15:44, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Could you explain what you mean with highly selective? If you think there are things missing here just let me know? -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 16:55, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't know much about systems engineering. But it looks like the same over-simplifications are being made here by the same user who is over-simplifying software development. Oicumayberight (talk) 20:46, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

This is simply a new initiative, which will grow with the contributions of other users. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 20:52, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Maybe, Marcel, encyclopedia writing is not for you. You seem much too linear, with an urge to straighten things out where the reality still is messy, unfortunately, where there are many, unaligned opinions, also among citable sources. Instead, try an article for a refereed science or engineering journal. -- Iterator12n ^Talk 21:19, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

I guess you are right. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 21:45, 22 October 2008 (UTC)