An Assessment of the Continuum of the Systems Engineering Process

LP #1. Early and full participation by the customer/user throughout the program is essential to program success.

LP #2. The use of pre-program “Phased Studies”to broadly explore technical concepts and alternatives is essential and provides for a healthy variety of inputs from a variety of contractors and government (NASA) centers.

LP #3. Provision for a high degree of systems integration to assemble, test, deploy and operate the system is essential to success and must be identified as a fundamental program resource

LP #4. Life Cycle Support Planning and Execution must be integral to design. Programs structured with real life cycle performance as a design driver will be capable performing in-service better, and will be capable of dealing with unplanned, unforeseen events (even usage in unanticipated missions).

LP #5. For complex programs, the number of players (government and contractor) demands that the program be structured to cope with high risk factors in many management and technical areas simultaneously.