Systems engineering and the innovation environment in US defence organisations

Abstract

Innovation may involve new designs and creations of products and services or improvement of existing products and services of an organisation. A major element of measuring organisational strength is its innovation and ability to build on and sustain such strength. The environment of this research was comprised of the intersection of systems engineering within the context of US defence organisations. The goal was to determine the significant factors that could be used to determine innovation in projects within the specific environment using traditional statistics and data mining modelling techniques. 112 experts in the field of innovation and systems engineering from major defence organisations were interviewed and 300 projects were analysed. Several factors were found that characterised the most innovative projects such as security and organisational leadership.