Systems Engineering + Design Curriculum
Systems Engineering + Design Curriculum Information:
Integrative Science (9-12 Credits)
Required Course (9 Credits)
Course Offerings (3 Credits)
- Model-Based Systems & Design
- Integrative Thinking
- Socio-Technology
- Global Engineering Leadership
- Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Career Pathways (9 Credits)
Course Offerings
- Design Engineering
- Risk and Decision Management
- Model-based Systems Engineering
- Smart Civil Infrastructure
- Integrated Mobility Systems
- Engineering Project Management
Program Core (6 Credits)
Course Offerings
- Systems Analysis
- Requirements Management
- Test and Evaluation
Immersive Practice (3-6 Credits)
Course Offerings
* Please Note: ISD cannot guarantee these courses are available every academic year or every term; these lists are updated on an on-going basis.
Integrative Science
(9-12 Credits)
Global Engineering Leadership
Engineering leaders are needed to strategically think and act globally based on an integration of academic excellence in engineering and business, experience in a variety of settings and environments, and the ability to lead across cultures and within organizations of varied sizes. In this field, you will strengthen your ability to develop engineering and business practices, develop cross-cultural leadership competencies, learn how to work within a global community, and lead with purpose, strategy, and vision in the development of sustainable global products, services, and processes for the common good.
Key Competencies:
- Ability to scope and identify unique challenges of global engineering projects:
- Global regulatory issues
- Internationally-recognized engineering and manufacturing quality norms
- Managing technology and legal contracts
- Global Supply Chain Issues/Outsourcing/ Offshoring/
- Re-positioning of Corporations and Subcontractors
- Risk Management
- Cross-cultural decision making
- Understanding consequences/impact of decisions
- Provide tools for taking corrective actions (within context of “real-world” global problems)
- International Cultural Competency
- Multicultural team management and global team leadership
ISD Courses
Additional Course Options
- BIOMEDE 588 (CHE 588) Global Quality Systems and Regulatory Innovation
- EAS 513 (STRATEGY 565) Strategies for Sustainable Development II: Market Transformation
- EAS 550 (STRATEGY 566) Systems Thinking for Sustainable Development and Enterprise
- ECON 435 Financial Economics
- FIN 480 Options & Futures in Corporate Decision Making
- FIN 551 Financial Management Policy
- FIN 615 Valuation
- FIN 647 Corporate Financial Strategy
- IOE 430 Global Cultural Systems Engineering
- MECHENG 589 (ISD 599) Sustainable Design of Technology Systems
- MFG 440 (IOE 440) Operations Analysis and Management
- MFG 455 (IOE 452) Corporate Finance
- MFG 501 (TO 701) Topics in Global Operations
- MFG 605 (TO 605) Manufacturing and Supply Operations
- MO 600 The Science of Success: Who Succeeds, Who Doesn’t, and Why
- MO 617 Developing and Managing High Performance Teams
- NERS 531 (ENSCEN 531, EARTH 529) Nuclear Waste Management
Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Innovation and entrepreneurship drive today’s engineering world. Fueling this growth from global corporations to small businesses and national governments to local governments is a need to build sustainable products, services, and technologies. In this field, you will integrate concepts of innovation and entrepreneurship with engineering, science, and design in pursuit of opportunities to innovate solutions to highly complex problems. Here, you will learn how to be the next industry “true innovators” in strengthening market uptake of raw materials solutions and building a bigger platform for a greener future
Key Competencies:
- Knowledge of market forces
- Financial insight (understanding numbers)
- Strategic thinking
- Negotiation
- Persuasion
- Ability to influence
- Creativity
- Business planning and integration
Courses
- ARTDES 651 Design Studio 1B Integration
- ARTSADMN 510 Arts Entrepreneurship Forum
- ARTSADMN 550 Arts Entrepreneurship Essentials
- BIOMEDE 588 (CHE 588) Global Quality Systems and Regulatory Innovation
- EAS 565 Principles for Transition
- EAS 576 (CEE 588, CHE 590) Sustainability Finance: Investment Model for Green Growth
- ENGR 520 Entrepreneurial Business Fundamentals for Scientists and Engineers
- ENTR 500 An Introduction to Innovation: Tools for Career Success
- ENTR 530 Innovation and Intellectual Property Strategy
- ENTR 599 Innovation for Impact: Defense and Security
- ENTR 599 Reimagining Companies through Innovation
- ES 414 Professional Capstone: Entrepreneurship Practicum
- ES 515 Introduction to Entrepreneurship
- ES 516 Entrepreneurship via Acquisitions
- ES 715 Driving Innovation Processes/Innovative New Business Design
- FIN 629 (ES 629) Financing Technology Commercialization – A Venture Capital Hands-on Challenge
- IOE 506 (MATH 506) Stochastic Analysis of Finance
- MKT 625 New Product and Innovation Management
- PIBS 550 Biomedical Innovation and Entrepreneurship
- SI 663 Innovation Leadership Information
- SW 799 Social Entrepreneurship
- TO 638 (FIN 638) FinTech: Blockchain, Cryptocurrencies, and Other Technology Innovations
Integrative Thinking
Integrative thinking requires seeing problems from multiple viewpoints, taking them all into consideration, and searching for creative solutions through a transformative approach. It requires shifting the focus to the vulnerabilities and capacities of single systems or sectors to interconnected systems and how these will shift over time, taking into account multidirectional interactions of projected changes, responses, and effects. This leads to understanding how to compose a holistic view of a problem, co-construct new knowledge, explore alternative views and methods of problem analysis, and synthesize them into a coherent solution. In this field, you will discover how to integrate across multiple boundaries for the greater good.
Key Competencies:
- Broad technical, business, management, and education experience
- Ability to construct and correlate models that are abstractions of interactions and to evaluate data against the model
- “Big picture” thinking
- Understanding, at least at the top level, what knowledge domains are relevant and prioritizing their importance
ISD Courses
- DESCI 501 (MECHENG 455) Analytical Product Design
- *DESCI 502 Design Process Models
- ISD 520 Introduction to Systems Engineering
- ISD 521 Development and Verification of System Design Requirements
- ISD 522 Systems Engineering Architecture and Design
- ISD 527 (MFG 527) Designing in Quality: A Design for Six Sigma
Additional Course Options
Model Based Systems and Design
Solving complex problems requires deeper levels of systems understanding. Modeling helps designers/engineers work at greater levels of complexity to support system requirements, design, analysis, verification and validation activities beginning in the conceptual design phase and continuing throughout development and later life cycle phases. In this field, you will strengthen your ability to create and implement models to support every stage of the engineering and design process as well as drive learning for modeling, analyzing, and solving complex problems.
Key Competencies:
- Modeling complex systems
- Optimization
- Data analytics
- Behavioral models
- Business/Dynamic modeling
- Qualitative models
- Digital twins development
- Evaluate data quality
ISD Courses
- AUTO 566 (MECHENG 566) Modeling Analysis and Control of Hybrid Electric Vehicles
- ISD 522 Systems Engineering Architecture and Design
- ISD 532 (ESENG 532, EAS 574, PUBPOL 519) Sustainable Energy Systems
- ISD 555 (MFG 555, MECHENG 555) Design Optimization
- ISD 565 (MECHENG 565) Battery Systems and Control
- ISD 599 (NAVARCH 515, MECHENG 599) Residual Stress and Distortion in Modern Manufacturing
- MFG 588 (MECHENG 588, IOE 588) Assembly Modeling for Design and Manufacturing
Additional Course Options
- ACC 601 Accounting Information System Design
- ARCH 708 Systems Engagement
- EAS 550 (STRATEGY 566) Systems Thinking for Sustainable Development and Enterprise
- IOE 434 Human Error and Complex System Failures
- IOE 541 Optimization Methods in Supply Chain
- IOE 574 Simulation Design and Analysis
- MECHENG 589 (ISD 599) Sustainable Design of Technology Systems
- MFG 535 (IOE 533) Human Motor Behavior and Engineering Systems
- MFG 539 (IOE 539) Safety Engineering Methods
- SI 631 Agile Software Development
- SI 648 (LHS 660, HMP 648) Evaluation and Research Methods for Health Informatics and Learning Systems
- SI 652 (EECS 547) Incentives and Strategic Behavior in Computational Systems
Socio-Technology
Engineers are needed to design within social, political, economic, and cultural contexts. In this field, you will design things that participate in complex systems that have both social and technical aspects, study the intersection of society and technology as a grouping of social engineering and management science and learn how to develop new technologies to meet challenges in energy, environment, food, housing, water, transportation, safety, and health. You will also learn the societal impact of engineering and design decisions at the intersection of science and technology.
Key Competencies:
- Socially engaged decision making
- Operational understanding of the impact of technology on society, world, environment (vice versa)
- Global awareness
ISD Courses
Additional Course Options
- BE 527 (EAS 527, NRE527) Energy Markets and Energy Politics
- CEE 586 (EAS 557) Industrial Ecology
- EAS 513 (STRATEGY 565) Strategies for Sustainable Development II: Market Transformation
- EAS 550 (STRATEGY 566) Systems Thinking for Sustainable Development and Enterprise
- EAS 575 Climate Economics and Policy
- EAS 605 (BA 605) Green Development
- EHS 588 Environmental Law
- PUBPOL 563 (EAS 686, HMP 686) Politics of Environmental Regulation
Program Core
(6 Credits)
Requirements Management
Requirements Management is the process of ensuring your organization validates and meets the needs of its customers and external and internal stakeholders. Those needs are typically referred to as requirements, which represent capabilities that will satisfy your product strategy. In this field, you will manage and update project database to ensure efficient information exchange across the project team, identify inconsistencies between decisions of different teams, expedite resolution of differences, and understand data structures, programming, model-based systems engineering, configuration control, and communication.
Key Competencies:
- Data Structures
- Programming
- Model-Based Systems Engineering
- Configuration Control
- Communication
Systems Analysis
Systems Analysis is the process of studying a procedure or business to identify its goal and purposes and create systems and procedures that will efficiently achieve them. Benefits include decreased costs, improved efficiencies, increased flexibility, and better management, quality, and controls. In this field, you will learn how to run different optimization software applications and define problems, understand creative definition of optimization problems to minimize computational issues, and study convex and global optimization.
Key Competencies:
- Problem Definition
- Linear and Goal Programming
- Convex Optimization
- Global Optimization
Courses
Additional Course Options
Test And Evaluation
Test and Evaluation is critical to ensuring a system meets capability needs and evolves from models to components to production articles and complete systems. In this field, you will learn how to design cost-effective low-risk experiments to verify and validate designs at the component and system level, study modern null hypothesis, understand quantitative analysis and statistics, and determine value of information analysis.
Key Competencies:
- Modern Null Hypothesis Testing
- Quantitative Analysis and Statistics
- Value of Information Analysis
ISD Courses
Additional Course Options
Career Pathways
(9 Credits)
Design Engineering
Design Engineering uses design science and model-based design across the complete lifecycle of a product to ensure the final product functions, performs and is fit for the purposes of its intended users. Recognizing that design is a socio-technical process, design engineering involves collaboration with other engineers, marketers, and customer representatives. In this field, you will learn how to create new products, combine data analysis with creative synthesis, analyze data on existing and potential customer concerns, and leverage this data.
Key Competencies:
- Human-centered Design
- Human-centered data analysis
- Creative Synthesis
ISD Courses
Additional Course Options
- AEROSP 588 Multidisciplinary Design Optimization
- CEE 480 Design of Environmental Engineering Systems
- IOE 548 Integrated Product Development
- MFG 535 (IOE 533) Human Motor Behavior and Engineering Systems
- MKT 630 Marketing Engineering
- PSYCH 711 (SURVMETH 630, SOC 711) Advanced Questionnaire Design
- SI 425 Introduction to User Modeling
- SI 617 Choice Architectures
- SI 622 Needs Assessment and Usability Evaluation
Engineering Project Management
Engineering project management is the initiation, planning, execution, control, and completion of an engineering team’s work based on project goals and resource/time constraints and reflecting technological uncertainties. In this field, you will learn how to dynamically update information on the feasibility of existing design activities as well as the desirability of different customer deliverables, leverage this information, and dynamically adjust budgets, deadlines, and targets for different activities to maximize project success.
Key Competencies:
- Feasibility Assessment
- Value Assessment
- Project Management
Integrated Mobility Systems
Cargo and people move using a combination of trucks, cars, trains, planes, ships and subways. Systems engineers must integrate these increasingly connected solutions to ensure efficient solutions to mobility challenges. Career paths can include mobility planning (mas transit, personal transit), technical planning and project leadership, logistics engineering, data subsystems for mobility solutions by suppliers, OEMs, start-ups and transportation planners.
Key Competencies:
- Multi-attribute optimization applied to social, governmental, technological, and competitive dimensions
- Data Analytics
- Transportation Engineering
- Reliability and Safety Analysis
- Logistics
- Human Motor Behavior
ISD Courses
- DESCI 501 (MECHENG 455) Analytical Product Design
- DESCI 502 Design Process Models
- ISD 520 Introduction to Systems Engineering
- ISD 521 Development and Verification of System Design Requirements
- ISD 522 Systems Engineering Architecture and Design
- ISD 523 (IOE 561) Risk Analysis 1
- ISD 527 (MFG 527) Designing in Quality: A Design for Six Sigma
Additional Course Options
Model-Based Systems Engineering
Model-based systems engineering is a formalized methodology used to support the requirements, design, analysis, verification, and validation associated with the development of complex systems. In this field, you will learn management of real-time information on design and verification requirements supports the project team, and software skills in database management, programming, and communication.
Key Competencies:
- Database management
- Programming
- Communication
Risk And Decision Management
Sources of wasted effort are unnecessary meetings, over-engineering, faulty requirements, and defective work products. But even valuable improvements, when unexpected, can lead to wasteful rework by other activities. In this field, you will learn how to become a lean, agile, and robust engineer who employs statistically rigorous techniques in efficiently and effectively designing products that conform to requirements and customer expectations.
Key Competencies:
- Decision Trees
- Value of Information Analysis
- Multi-attribute Utility
- Discounting Utility Over Time
Smart Civil Infrastructure
Civil infrastructures and environmental systems are increasingly incorporating intelligent and autonomous subsystems (e.g., decision systems, feedback control, advanced artificial intelligence, sensor and actuation networks). These technologies make infrastructures more responsive to uncertain and dynamically-changing environments and loads, thus enhancing their resilience and reliability. They can also enable real-time, automated adaptation and reconfiguration of infrastructures to enhance efficiency and sustainability. This career path provides a rigorous exposure to many concepts from systems engineering (e.g., dynamical systems, control theory, sensing and signal processing, and optimization theory)- with special attention to Civil and Environmental Engineering applications.
Key Competencies:
- System and control theory
- Sensing technologies
- Signal processing and data analytics
- Optimization
- Risk-based decision theory
Immersive Practice
(3-6 Credits)
Practicum
Work for leading industry partners to apply what you learn during your ISD coursework in a semester- or year-long project to contribute new ideas and knowledge to high priority engineering and technical issues. Learn more about this component of the ISD Curriculum on the ISD Practicum page.
Courses
Take 3 academic credits per semester for up to two semesters. One capstone project enrollment, or approved alternative, is required for graduation. A second capstone project enrollment in another semester is allowed pending Program Director approval.