Evaluation of a Collaborative Aerospace Lifecycle Systems Engineering Master's Program

Abstract

There is a need for a program designed to more tightly integrate manufacturing, producibility, life cycle costs, and large scale system integration concerns from the beginning of the aerospace design process. This paper presents the results of an analysis performed in support of the development of a Collaborative Aerospace Lifecycle Systems Engineering Master's Program (CALSEMP). The proposed CALSEMP addresses six focus areas identified by the NDIA including systems engineering trade study and design decision methodologies; system integration, assembly, and test analyses modeling; enterprise level supply chain design; electrical, mechanical, and assembly yield modeling; quantitative analyses; and life cycle cost modeling. The analysis was performed at Georgia Tech using an integrated product and process design approach to systems engineering, with qualitative and quantitative tools, such as the house of quality, morphological matrix, Pugh and TOPSIS methods. We present the alternative concepts studied and our proposed master's program, which will hopefully enable aerospace industries to compete on the global aerospace market by providing them with tools that help them better integrate all these concerns throughout the product life cycle.