Systems Engineering

Issued by Penn State College of Engineering

System engineering integrates the key elements of a complex system into one structure and manages it throughout its lifecycle: customer requirements through design, validation, verification, & production.Badge holders can (1) describe the key functions of a systems engineer; (2) identify the SMART elements of a system requirement; (3) explain system design milestones; (4) describe the linear flow of systems design through the V-diagram.

Type Learning
Level Foundational
Time Hours
Cost Free

Skills

Earning Criteria

Students attended a 4-hour interactive workshop facilitated by 3 Iridium Communications Engineers: Saumil Shah, Director of Systems Engineering; Nina Casey, Principal Systems Engineer; Eric Falconer, RF Satellite Communications Engineer. Instructional content related to an overview of Systems Engineering and the roles of systems engineers; SMART requirements, including how to improve poorly written ones; key milestones of SRR, PDR, CDR, TRR, and ORR; and a discussion of the linear V-diagram.
Throughout the 4-hour workshop, earners answered questions demonstrating knowledge acquisition and developing understanding pertaining to Systems Engineering. Additionally, in groups, students created and revised SMART requirements for different elements of a hypothetical system. In this case, the example used was a pizza delivery company needing to create requirements for the following elements: phone applications interface, chef, oven, and delivery.
Earners passed an assessment (at 80% or higher) that evaluated foundational knowledge of systems engineering, SMART requirements, key milestones, and the V-diagram.