Integrating the Project with the Product for Applied Systems Engineering Management

Abstract

Abstract Systems engineering planning and control are the essentials of systems engineering management. While the project management is concerned with such concepts as tasks, milestones, and budget, systems engineering is concerned with the product, requirements is needs to meet, its architecture, and its performance. In spite of the clear difference in the ontology used, both managers and engineers are equally required in order for the project-product ensemble to succeed. This underlines the need for a language and model as common bases for communication between managers and engineers. Based on this observation, we propose Project-Product Lifecycle Management (PPLM) as a combined model-based approach for planning project-product ensembles. Utilizing Object Process Methodology (OPM), the PPLM model integrates the project domain with the product domain via shared ontology that explicitly relates project to product entities within a unifying frame of reference.