Taking a Systematic Approach to the United States Military Academy Systems Engineering Program

Our group examined the United States Military Academy Systems Engineering (USMA SE) program from an internal perspective using the tools we learned in our program. The purpose of the project was to take a holistic system view of the SE program in support of the program assessment being conducted by our client, the SE Program Director. A major development in our capstone process is when we discovered our program should have a heavy emphasis in the decision-making aspect of systems engineering. This is due to the fact that all of our graduates will be commissioned as officers in the US Army and the primary job of an officer is to make decisions for his or her unit. This is why we believe that our program should emphasize decision making. Our revised objectives and outcomes is a culmination of research that looks at the values of different stakeholders while keeping in mind constraints like the USMA mission and ABET requirements. Next we developed alternatives to change the program curriculum to fulfill the program objectives and outcomes. Our recommendation is to eliminate two electives and a required course to allow for a three track stem. By doing this, our program is more systems engineering and aligning with what system engineering cadets should learn by graduation.