Architecting the System of Systems Enterprise: Enabling Constructs and Methods from the Field of Engineering Systems

• Main Authors: Rhodes, Donna H. (Contributor), Ross, Adam Michael (Contributor), Nightingale, Deborah J. (Contributor)
• Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Center for Technology, Policy, and Industrial Development (Contributor), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics (Contributor), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Engineering Systems Division (Contributor)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 2010-12-01T18:50:07Z.
• Subjects: Article
• Online Access: Get fulltext

 Engineering systems is a field of scholarship focused on developing fundamental theories and methods to address the challenges of large-scale complex systems in context of their socio-technical environments. The authors describe facets of their recent and ongoing research within the field of engineering systems to develop constructs and methods for architecting enterprises engaged in system-of-systems (SoS) engineering,. The ultimate goal of the research is to develop a framework for characterizing, designing, and evaluating SoS enterprise architectures throughout the system lifespan as various forces result in entering/exiting of constituent systems, changing environment, and shifting enterprise profile. The nature of systems-of-systems demands constructs for multi-dimensional architectural descriptions, as well as methods for design and evaluation that employ dynamic approaches. In this paper, two important elements in an emerging framework are described, including a holistic enterprise architecting framework and an epoch-based analysis method for examining possible futures of the SoS enterprise.