Systems Engineering of Complex Commercial Systems

The formal Systems Engineering process was developed by the Department of Defense and its contractors in the late 1950s, during the development of the first ballistic missile systems, and was first documented as a standard process in 1969 in MIL-STD 499, Engineering Management. The process is intended to provide an overall framework for managing the development and acquisition of complex defense systems, describing an orderly sequence and supporting documentation to be implemented by both the government customers and development contractors. During the definition of systems engineering, defense and aerospace systems clearly represented the most complex products undertaken by the U.S. scientific, engineering, and industrial communities. As commercial products, particularly those spanning many technical disciplines, began to exhibit the same degree of complexity, the companies responsible for these commercial products have started adapting the DoD systems engineering process and practices for use in commercial product development projects.