Systems Engineering and Object Technology

This paper extends Systems Engineering methods to include object technology, which has been developing in modern software engineering, (Rumbaugh et. al. 1991). It applies the principles of Model Based Systems Engineering, MBSE, (Oliver 1993a), (Oliver 1993b) to the systems engineering process itself. This results in a layered process description which is tailorable and supports aerospace or commercial methodologies. Multiple phases of engineering - concept phase, requirements analysis phase, and systems architecture and design phase - are supported with a single core set of engineering steps. The additions of semantics and notations from object technology provides a capability to describe the choices of components and the mapping of behavior to components that lead to alternative architectures. Strong emphasis is placed on the systems engineering traditions of trade-off analysis and sequential build and test which have been weak in software engineering methodologies. The joining of systems engineering with object technology provides a seamless engineering path for projects which will implement software in an object-oriented fashion. Integration with existing methodologies is straight forward because existing methodologies can be defined by selecting among the core MBSE steps. © 1994 The Authors.