Ac 2010-267: What Is Systems Engineering?

ABET has recently proposed to expand its list of program criteria to include criteria for systems and similarly named engineering programs. Industrial engineers have often claimed the ownership of the phrase “systems engineering,” even incorporating it into the names of some departments, e.g., industrial and systems engineering. While defining terms can be a sterile exercise, in this paper we concentrate on the practical implications of defining “systems engineering.” Some of the questions we address here are as follows. What are the real-world problems that systems engineering claims to study, what are the principal methods of systems engineering and how different are they from those of industrial engineering, and what is and should be taught in programs in systems engineering? What can students expect to learn and what jobs can they obtain after completing their studies?