The Systems Engineering Research Center (SERC), a University-Affiliated Research Center of the US Department of Defense, leverages the research and expertise of senior lead researchers from 20 collaborator universities and not-for-profit research organizations throughout the United States.  SERC is unprecedented in the depth and breadth of its reach, leadership, and citizenship in Systems Engineering. Led by Stevens Institute of Technology, and principal collaborator, the University of Southern California (USC), the SERC provides a critical mass of systems engineering researchers – a community of broad experience, deep knowledge, and diverse interests. SERC researchers have worked with a wide variety of domains and industries, and so are able to bring views and ideas from beyond the traditional defense industrial base. Establishing such a community of focused SE researchers, while difficult, promises results well beyond what any one university could accomplish.

The Need for Systems Engineering

The responsibility for integrating disciplines, balancing conflicting attributes, and delivering capabilities when needed has been traditionally allocated to systems engineering. However, developers and management are raising concerns that systems engineering as currently practiced is less capable of handling the complexity, collaboration and pace required; it is increasingly considered a barrier to success rather than an enabler. As the critical need for a broad systems viewpoint grows, the traditional means of assuring that viewpoint is losing practitioner confidence.

The discipline of system engineering, then, is both a critical success factor for system development and evolution and a perceived impediment. To fulfill its mission, systems engineering must expand its capabilities and reinforce its relevancy; the methods, processes and tools applied must evolve to meet the needs of current and future systems.

A Systems Engineering Research Center

The SERC was created to solve this problem. Viable, long-term solutions are not going to be found by tweaking the current systems engineering process. Solutions require a fundamental rethinking of systems engineering—building on its fundamental principles, concentrating on the necessary flows of information, and stripping away nonessential activities. We must re-examine the core definition of system, the role of the system engineer, the approach to systems specifications, the management of risk during the development phases, and integration of both systems and system of systems. Security, pace, complexity—all the trends described above—will drive a new systems engineering paradigm.

Successful technical and cultural change requires recognition, reach and relevance. Because no one university has the depth and breadth for this complex task, the SERC provides a critical mass of researchers drawn from its 20 highly respected collaborators.

The SERC comprises a significant part of systems engineering research and educational programs in the United States. Such pervasive access to the next generation of systems engineers provides enormous leverage for change. Each collaborator has significant experience with military, intelligence, and executive agencies and understands their unique cultures, languages and missions. The SERC also maintains close ties with INCOSE, IEEE and ACM—professional organizations that cross domain and national boundaries. These existing relationships secure the ability to translate new ideas into relevant actions for practitioners.

The SERC—its leadership, researchers and transition resources—is uniquely qualified to renew systems engineering at this 21st century crossroad. Although focused on the future, the SERC will also respond to the current needs of our defense and intelligence community sponsors. SERC research will always be guided by the challenges our sponsors have identified and is coordinated with them through both the research strategy and the tasking infrastructure. Systems engineering research has a new nexus, the work has begun, and the potential benefit to the systems engineering community is immense.

The Systems Engineering Research Center is the first DoD University Affiliated Research Center focused on Systems Engineering Research in the United States.

What is the mission of the Systems Engineering Research Center?

The mission of the Systems Engineering Research Center is to enhance and enable the Department of Defense’s (DoD) capability in Systems Engineering for the successful development, integration, testing and sustainability of complex defense systems, services and enterprises.

Who is the primary sponsor for SERC?

SERC is a designated University Affiliated Research Center (UARC) supported by the Department of Defense. The DoD provides oversight and multi-year base funding for SERC.

How does SERC serve the DoD?

The Systems Engineering Research Center will operate as the systems engineering research engine for the DoD. SERC will be responsible for identifying, evaluating, creating and integrating methods, and processes and tools that support effective systems engineering practice in the acquisition of weapons platforms, major defense systems, systems of systems, network-centric systems, and enterprise systems.

Under what type of contract does SERC operate?

Stevens Institute of Technology was awarded under a 10 USC 2304(c)(3) (B) five-year renewable IDIQ task order contract, with the University of Southern California (USC) serving as its principal collaborator.

How will SERC receive tasking from the DoD?

The DoD has established a government Program Management Office to oversee the SERC. The Program Management Office will provide Technical Task Orders to which the SERC will respond.

What role does SERC play in regards to Systems Engineering (SE) education?

SERC will develop and enhance SE skills and competencies in the DoD and its supporting community of contractors through education programs and workshops, and by transferring its research results to degree granting SE programs.

Which universities are involved in the SERC?

SERC is a collaborative research center comprised of 20 collaborator schools and research organizations led by Stevens Institute of Technology. Collectively, the SERC collaborators are unparalleled in the depth and breath, leadership and citizenship in Systems Engineering research. SERC collaborators include:

Stevens Institute of Technology
University of Southern California
Air Force Institute of Technology
Auburn University
Carnegie Mellon University
Fraunhofer Center at the University of Maryland
Georgia Institute of Technology
Missouri University of Science and Technology
Naval Postgraduate School
Pennsylvania State University
Purdue University (Newest SERC collaborator)
Southern Methodist University
Texas A&M University
Texas Tech University
University of Alabama in Huntsville
University of California at San Diego
University of Maryland
University of Massachusetts at Amherst
Wayne State University

Who is responsible for managing and operating SERC?

SERC is managed by Stevens Institute of Technology, with principal collaboration by the University of Southern California. Its executive leaders are:

Executive Director: Dr. Dinesh Verma, Dean and Professor School of Systems and Enterprises at Stevens
Deputy Executive Director: Dr. Arthur Pyster, Distinguished Research Professor, School of Systems and Enterprises at Stevens
Director of Research: Dr. Barry Boehm, Director of the University of Southern California (USC) Center for Systems and Software Engineering and TRW Professor of Software Engineering
Business Manager: Ms. Doris Schultz, Director of Procurement, Stevens Institute of Technology

How do the collaborators interact with Stevens?

Each collaborator is a subcontractor to Stevens. Each collaborator has named a lead senior researcher, who is the primary technical contact between the collaborator school of research center, and Stevens. The lead senior researcher will help identify faculty to perform research and will be responsible for the overall technical performance by the collaborator school or research center.

The SERC core competencies address advanced research, innovative methods, processes, tools, and technology, and concept prototype and development in the following areas:

• Systems Engineering (SE) methods, processes, and tools (MPTs) to enable integrated development and management of requirements, design, interfaces, verification and validation, technical baselines, and risk
• Exploration of new ways of linking requirements to design
• SE MPTs to fully leverage modeling and simulation advances including the use of formal languages (e.g., XML, SAML) and modeling techniques (e.g., UML, SysML) to capture and document requirements along with other program artifacts and to support design trade studies
• Linkage of technical baselines to architectures
• Application of SE to acquisition of services

The SERC addresses systems architecting, complex systems theory, systems thinking, systems science, knowledge management, and software engineering to perform research to advance the design and development of complex systems across all DoD domains, including:

• System and open systems architecture practices and systems analysis
• Systems Engineering in complex systems of systems and family of systems environments
• Enterprise systems engineering
• Software-unique extensions and modern software development techniques and how they relate to SE
• Flexible SE environments to support complex software systems and commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware and software integration
• Knowledge management SE repositories
• Undergraduate/graduate SE education needs
• Leverage developments in open systems standards, organizational theory, program management, systems engineering management, and information technology to provide needed integration of program / technical management MPTs including:
• Integrating technical performance measures (TPM) with earned value management (EVM)
• Role of maturity reviews in SE planning – technology, manufacturing, and software, and their integration
• Systems engineering team structures, communication mechanisms, internal and external collaboration, and other mechanisms for continuous process improvement
• Improved SE information sharing across the enterprise, program, and engineering team using technologies such as wikis, blogs, portals, search engines, etc.
• Rationale and way ahead for standards harmonization
• Consideration of tool sets throughout the system life cycle
• Analyzing SE costs, cost accounts, and return on investment (ROI)
• SE metrics and use of leading indicators to track/forecast program success

While the existing SERC collaborators already represents a significant portion of the systems and software engineering research talent in the United States, there are special conditions under which other universities or research centers may become a SERC collaborator. To discuss this possibility please contact a member of the SERC Leadership Team.