Systems Engineering: NASA Understands the Importance of Lessons Learned

NASA and its Technical Standards Program emphasize the importance of systems engineering.

This, of course, is not surprising given that systems engineering is fundamental to good engineering, which in turn depends on the integration and application of engineering lessons learned and technical standards.

For NASA, good systems engineering also depends on systems engineering lessons learned from within the aerospace industry being documented and applied. It’s estimated that 10% of the engineering lessons learned documented in the NASA Lessons Learned Information System are directly related to systems engineering.

A key issue associated with lessons learned datasets is the communication and incorporation of this information into engineering processes.

Systems engineering has been defined (EIA/IS-632) as “an interdisciplinary approach encompassing the entire technical effort to evolve and verify an integrated and life-cycle balanced set of system people, product, and process solutions that satisfy customer needs.”

Designing reliable space-based systems has always been a goal for NASA, and many painful lessons have been learned along the way. One of the continuing functions of a system engineer is to compile development and operations “lessons learned” documents and ensure their integration into future systems development activities.

These documents can produce insights and information for risk identification on a new project. Lessons learned files from previous projects are especially valuable in risk identification and characterization.

Then again, within the life cycle process, a number of essential functional systems engineering processes are necessary to provide customer satisfaction. One of the key processes is training.

Fundamental to any training is the exploitation of lessons learned files, thus enabling the achievement and maintenance of skills and abilities necessary to perform the necessary processes throughout the life cycle for a flight vehicle development.

As part of the NASA Technical Standards Program activities, engineering lessons learned datasets have been identified from a number of sources. These are being searched and screened for those having a relation to Technical Standards.

Tonex offers nearly 400 systems engineering courses in more than four dozen categories. Topics cover everything from Space Engineering and Defense Technology to Smart Cities, Automotive Engineering and Advanced Systems Engineering Certification.

Our systems engineering training courses are designed to apply systems engineering processes and methods. This approach teaches participants how to align practical system thinking and systems engineering knowledge and skills with process improvement, project management and program management.

Systems engineering training courses include discussions projects, case studies, formal presentation and workshops covering key aspects of systems engineering on a single system and system of systems (SoS) through a development lifecycle.

For more information, questions, comments, contact us.

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