Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

One function of systems engineering is to open the black boxes, look at the entire system, and apply some wisdom.

We often build systems by connecting existing systems and subsystems. These existing pieces are black boxes, i.e., we don’t know or don’t care to know what is inside them and how they work. These black boxes have defined interfaces and a history of functioning per these interfaces. These properties allow us to combine them into something that does what we want.

There comes a point, however, when building a system from black boxes doesn’t work or doesn’t work as well as we wish. At that time, the systems engineer opens the black boxes and peers inside. Hmm, we only this this part of this black box. We can discard the rest. That black box, well, we need all of it. That black box, we only need one little part of it. That black box, well, we don’t need any of it given that we are using only select parts of the other black boxes. And so on.

The systems engineer considers all the parts of all the black boxes and applies some wisdom. The result of wisdom is a new system that is more efficient, has fewer parts, is more maintainable, and lots of other better attributes.

The systems engineer’s job isn’t easy, and it isn’t easy to find a person with the required knowledge and experience. The hunt and application, however, are worth the effort.

For more on this and other aspects of systems engineering, see this short, free book on the subject.