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I think there are a few things for the next generation to realize,

first off is reductionism is still critical.

Reductionism is how we will advance narrow specialty science and

technologies, that will be the building block for systems.

But what's also critical is holism, the system's perspective.

Not everybody should be a systems engineer.

But everybody needs to understand the system's perspective because their

technology is going to come together in a system to deliver value.

So those are the big pictures for engineers and scientists.

But if we talk about systems engineers in the next generation,

we have to realize the shift that is underway.

Our systems are becoming more complex, and they're becoming more complex because of

the pace of change but also the interconnectedness.

A systems engineer in the 21st century must fundamentally be comfortable

with network concepts.

The other thing is in the 60s and 70s and the 80s, the so

called golden era of systems engineering,

most of our capability was delivered through electromechanical systems.

You can argue whether it's 70, 80, 90% of the capability today,

whatever number you pick, most of it is delivered by software.

Our systems are no longer electromechanical, they're cyber-physical,

which means any systems engineer must fundamentally understand software.

They don't have to be a programmer, but if they don't

understand the building blocks of their systems they can't possibly succeed.

There's an interesting trend that's going on in systems engineering, and

it's loosely called the bathtub effect.

Within the known systems engineering universe, remember that was aerospace and

defense for the longest time, we stopped developing systems engineering, sorry,

systems engineers for a number of years.

And so as a result, most of our systems engineers are very

senior systems engineers who are near or beyond retirement age.

We then have a very young population of new systems engineers who have come into

the field, come into the practice, they may be more equipped with the latest tools

and techniques, but systems engineering is, it's a practice learned by doing.

I can study the techniques, I can teach the methods, and

I can learn the concepts very simply.

But it's actually practical applied work, it's work done by content.

So what we're seeing is a transition of the workforce, we're seen a lot

of partnering between very senior systems engineers and very new systems engineers

to transfer rules, heuristics, lessons learned, approaches, and

at the same time we're injecting new technology with this newer generation.

Now, one more thing to note about systems engineers, it's often a second career.

It's a practice that people adopt on top of the discipline that they studied and

applied for so many years.

So a new systems engineer could be 35, could be 45, could be 55.

And they're bringing that systems thinking, that big picture

perspective on top of that domain expertise that they've had all along.

Next Generation

Roadmap to Success in Digital Manufacturing & Design

Meet the Instructors