1.5.2 Systems Engineering in Aircraft System Design

In order to be competitive, companies have to provide products that perform more and better than earlier ones at a lower cost. This inevitably leads to a higher density of functionality in products, and as a consequence there is a trend to integrate different technologies such as mechanical, electrical and fluid subsystems and embedded software. More of the engineering effort is therefore placed on system architecture and system integration. It also becomes more important to find and to express requirements more exactly in order to be able to emphasise the right ones. It also means that the product has to more tailored the customer needs and that analysis of systems of systems where the product is to operate, becomes more important. There are several levels of design from requirement analysis and system architecture down to detail design There is a clear danger that systems engineering activities are performed only at top level of a design. In order to have an impact on the product development process it must, however, permeate all levels of the design in such a way that a holistic view is maintained through all stages of the design. © 2001 The Authors.