Processes for System Family Architecting, Design, and Integration

Today, many systems within government and industry are typically engineered, not as stand alone systems, but as part of an integrated system of systems, or a federation of systems, or systems family. A significant level of effort has been devoted in the past several years to the development, refinement, and ultimately, acceptance of processes for engineering systems or systems engineering processes. Today, we have four ldquostandardrdquo processes within present and past standards: EIA-632, IEEE 1220, ISO 15288, and MIL-STD-499C. We continue to use systems engineering processes espoused in our current set of standards, and are left to our devices to tailor these processes to one appropriate for a systems family context. This paper will examine the systems engineering processes in existence today and conclude with development of a process designed specifically for systems family applications.