An investigation into the impact of applying systems engineering life-cycle processes during new product development and the economic growth of the diversified industrial sector

Abstract

Systems engineering rigor has been used successfully in the aerospace and defense industries where the development cycles tend to be rather long. However, the practice of using a traditional waterfall, spiral or V-model systems engineering life-cycle framework, in other industries brings into question their appropriateness when considering the relative speed of new product development in industrial manufacturing. The purpose of this research is to investigate the applicability of incorporating systems engineering principles in the industrial sector to determine whether there is a statistical association with the overall growth of diversified industrial firms. This research focuses on investigating three systems engineering life-cycle approaches: incremental & iterative methods, lean enablers for systems engineering and agile systems engineering, using a semistructured interviewing approach with subject matter experts from the Fortune 500 diversified industrial sector. The research reveals that there are weak statistical associations between the use of the incremental & iterative and lean systems engineering life-cycle approaches when considering the financial growth of the diversified industrial sector. However, the research reveals that there is a strong statistical association between the financial growth of companies in the diversified industrial sector and the use of the agile systems engineering life-cycle approach.

Keywords:

• Systems engineering
• growth
• frameworks
• agile
• incremental & iterative
• lean enablers
• industrial manufacturing