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Engineering Systems Integration
there is an implied impartiality that fairly weighs all facets. However, systems engineering is the process of transforming objective needs through
subjective processes to achieve an objective result. The subjectivity comes
from planning and the results of planning. Recursive implies that the answer
is not known, but rather is discoverable in the process of objectifying the
requirements and procedures into objects that satisfy the needs of key stakeholders. Recursiveness is the property of a process that is identifiable by an
event (i.e., interaction between objects), deemed causal for that event, and
that has predictive qualities for the next event or chain of events. Recursive
processes are not iterative. Iterative processes are typified as refinements on
existing objects. Recursive processes are typified as refinements on future
objects.
Here, the issue of causality is not statistical, but rather based on experimentation with the objects’ mechanisms to ascertain the relation between
the adjustable parameters of the objects. Statistical models are incomplete
because they are recursive (Heckman and Vytlacil 2006).* There are two such
types of recursive processes: (1) self-recursive: those that are determinable by
internal processes (e.g., modeling, simulation, integration, and testing) that
reveal or associate with patterns that help the decision makers move toward
an integrable set of objects) and (2) open-recursive: external processes that
reveal or associate with patterns that are not considered to be part of the
work domain of the project. Examples of self-recursive processes are patterns of improved performance due to a particular physical configuration or
the need to change an existing (or in-progress) object to better reflect the
needs of future integrable objects. Self-recursive processes benefit from the
interactions between objects as they often produce patterns that are suggestive of what needs to be accomplished next. For both types of recursiveness,
the operative model is that of a social network (Fowler et al. 2009), where the
work of the project development team is controlled to a great extent by the
subjective procedures that were used as well as the extrospective analysis
provided by key stakeholders. The nature of recursive processes lies in their
dynamics which tend to point out the next best step by exposing the consequences of the previous steps. Unlike iterative processes that focus on redoing what was done previously, recursive processes point to the future, the
next event in integration that is now less problematic than before. Systems
engineering process models are both iterative and recursive (Sopha et al.
2010), where the great reliance on iteration is meant to improve on what has
been done previously. Systems integration is recursive, in part due to the
nature of systems engineering that has been applied to the system design
and specifications for objects. So, by their natures, system integration is quite
different from systems engineering. The management of systems integration
is quite different from systems engineering also.
* The scientific model embodies nonrecursive causal models (Heckman and Vytlacil 2006).