Feasibility of a rapid systems engineering framework: An exploratory study

Systems Engineering (SE) has been traditionally viewed as an extremely rigorous approach for having resource intensive processes often perceived to involve bureaucratic decision making; therefore, deemed to be affordable only by large companies and government institutions. However, in recent years, the commercial industry is trying to leverage the benefits of SE by selecting the relevant aspects that apply to them and customising SE to a leaner and compressed version. This paper explores the suitability and the feasibility of rapid approaches and techniques to the existing SE processes. More specifically, this paper describes 22 techniques of rapid systems engineering (RSE) during the design and implementation processes, relevant to those processes and lessons learned. These techniques are applied to the 14 SE processes as illustrated by the SE standard - ISO 15288. An exploratory survey was developed by the authors based on the SE process activities as per ISO 15288 to evaluate application utilising a rapid approach in current projects from various industries. This paper provides conclusions to applying rapid techniques to the SE processes based on existing literature and the experiences of the projects surveyed. It concludes with a discussion of potential research projects for the evaluation of RSE.