Lean Enablers for Systems Engineering

S ystems engineering is regarded as an established sound practice but not always delivered effectively. Sixty-two recent successful space launches indicate that mission assurance can be practiced well. At the same time, recent U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) and NASA studies of space systems [1, 2, 3, 4] document notorious major budget and schedule overruns, some exceeding 100 percent. Most programs are burdened with waste, poor coordination, unstable requirements, quality problems, and management frustrations. Recent studies by the MIT-based Lean Advancement Initiative (LAI) researchers [5, 6, 7, 8] have identified a mind-boggling amount of waste in government programs, reaching 70 percent of charged time. This waste represents a vast productivity reserve in programs and major opportunities to improve program efficiency. The new field of LSE is the application of Lean Thinking to SE and to the related aspects of enterprise management. SE is focused on the flawless performance of complex technical systems. Lean Thinking is the holistic management paradigm credited for the extraordinary rise of Toyota to the most profitable and the largest auto company in the world [9]. Toyota is well-known for practicing excellent Product Development and SE (what Toyota refers to as simultaneous engineering). For example, the Prius car design was completed in nine months from the end of styling, a performance level unmatched by any competitor [10]. Lean Thinking has been successfully applied in defense industry and in the U.S. military itself, (e.g., [5], and the Air Force Lean initiative named AFSO-21). It has become an established paradigm in manufacturing , aircraft depots, administration, supply chain management, health, and Product Development, including engineering. LSE is the area of synergy of Lean and SE with the goal to deliver the best life-cycle value for technically complex systems with minimal waste. LSE does not mean less SE. It means more and better SE with higher responsibility, authority, and accountability (RAA), leading to better and waste-free workflow and mission assurance. Under the LSE philosophy, mission assurance is non-negotiable, and any task which is legitimately required for success must be included, but it should be well-planned and executed with minimal waste. Three concepts are fundamental to the understanding of Lean Thinking: value, waste, and the process of creating value without waste (also known as Lean Principles). Value The value proposition in engineering programs is often a multi-year complex and expensive acquisition process, involving thousands of stakeholders and resulting in hundreds or …